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THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 








THE BLOOD OF 
THE ARENA 


BY 
VICENTE BLASCO IBANEZ 


FROM THE SPANISH, BY FRANCES DOUGLAS 


ILLUSTRATED IN COLOR BY TROY 
AND MARGARET WEST KINNEY 





CHICAGO 
A. C. McCLURG & CO. 
1911 , 


Copyright 
A. C. McCLURG & CO. 


“a 


1911 





Published November, 1911 


Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London 


%. F. Gall Printing Company 
Chiragn 


2 vs 


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——— eS SS 
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CONTENTS 


The Hero and the Public 

The Matador and the Lady 
Born for the Bull-ring . 

At Carmen’s Window-grille 
The Lure of Golden Hair . 
The Voice of the Siren . 

The Spanish Wild Beast 
Diamonds in the Ring . 
Breakfast with the Bandit . ; 
A Look into the Face of Death . 
Doctor Ruiz on Tauromachy 
Airing the Saints . 

The Mastery of Salbpreasrveuse: 
The Spanish Lilith 

Behind the Scenes 


“The Greatest’ Man in the ‘World 


The Atonement of Blood 


391969 








ILLUSTRATIONS 


Page 
When the swordsman clasped her hand she looked 
into hiseyes. “ Don’t go—come; come!” . Frontispiece 


Gallardo’s wedding was a national event. Far into 


the night guitars strummed with melancholy plaint. 
. » « Girls, their arms held high, beat the marble 


floor with their little feet . : : “ - g6 


“For me?” asked the bandit in tones of surprise 
‘and wonder. “ For me, Sefiora Marquesa?” . . 224 


The animal moved in confusion between the red 
cloths, drawing him far away from the swords- 
man . ‘ : F eed , ! X - 294 





THE BLOOD OF THE 
ARENA 


CHAPTER I 


THE HERO AND THE PUBLIC 


UAN GALLARDO breakfasted early, as he did 
whenever there was to be a bull-fight. A slice of 
roast meat was his only dish. Wine he did not even 
touch; the bottle remained unopened before him. He 
must keep himself calm. He drank two cups of thick, 
black coffee, and lighted an enormous cigar, sitting with 
his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands, looking 
with dreamy eyes at the guests who one by one filled 
the dining-room. 

It was a number of years ago, not long after he had 
been given “the alternative” in the bull-ring of Madrid, 
that he came to lodge at a certain hotel on Alcala Street _ 
where his hosts treated him as if he were one of the 
family, and the dining-room servants, porters, scullions, 
and old waiters adored him as’the glory of the estab- 
lishment. There, too, he had spent many days wrapped 
in bandages, in a dense atmosphere heavy with the smell 
of iodoform, in consequence of two gorings, but the 
unhappy recollection did not weigh upon him. 

In his Southern superstitious mind, exposed to con- 


[9] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


tinual danger, he regarded this hotel as a charmed 
shelter, and thought that nothing ill would happen to 
him while living in it; accidents common to the profes- 
sion, rents in his clothing, scratches in his flesh perhaps, 
but no last and final fall after the manner of other 
comrades, the recollection of whom haunted even his 
happier hours. 

On the days of the great bull-fights, after the early 
breakfast, he enjoyed sitting in the dining-room con- 
templating the movement of travellers. They were 
foreigners, or people from distant provinces, who passed 
near with indifferent countenances, and without looking 
at him; and then became curious on learning from the 
servants that the fine youth with shaven face and black 
eyes, dressed like a young gentleman, was Juan Gal- 
lardo, by all familiarly called Gallardo, the famous 
bull-fighter. Thus were whiled away the long and pain- 
ful hours before going to the plaza. 

These moments of uncertainty, in which vague fears 
emerged from the depths of his soul, making him doubt 
himself, were the bitterest in his professional experience. 
He would not go out on the street thinking of the strain 
of the contest, and of the need of keeping himself rested 
and agile; and he could not entertain himself at the table 
on account of the necessity of eating a light meal, 
in order to reach the ring without disturbance of his 
digestion. ie 

He remained at the head of the table, his face between 
his hands and a cloud of perfumed smoke before his eyes, 
turning his gaze from time to time with a certain fatu- 
ousness to look at some ladies who were contemplating 
the famous bull-fighter with interest. 


[ 10 ] 5 





THE HERO AND THE PUBLIC 


His pride as the idol of the masses made him feel that 
he could divine eulogy and flattery in these looks. They 
thought him smart and-elegant. And, with the instinct 
of all men accustomed to pose before the public, forget- 
ting his preoccupation, he sat erect, knocked off with his. 
finger nails the cigar ashes fallen on his sleeves, and ar- 
ranged his ring, which covered the whole joint of one of 
his fingers with an enormous diamond surrounded by a 
nimbus of colors as if its clear liquid depths burned with 
magic fire. 

His eyes roved with satisfaction over his person, ad- 
miring the suit of elegant cut, the cap which he wore 
around the hotel lying on a nearby chair, the fine gold 
chain that crossed the upper part of his vest from pocket 
to pocket, the pearl in his cravat that seemed to illumin- 
ate the brown tone of his countenance with milky light, 
and the shoes of Russia leather showing between their 
tops and the edge of the rolled-up trousers socks of open- 
work silk embroidered like the stockings of a cocotte. 

An atmosphere of English perfumes, mild and vague, 
but used with profusion, arose from his clothing and 
from his black and brilliant hair. This he brushed 
carefully down over his temples, adopting a style certain 
to attract feminine curiosity. For a bull-fighter the 
ensemble was not bad; he felt satisfied with his appear- 
ance. Where was there another more distinguished, or 
one who had a better way with women? 

But suddenly his preoccupation returned, the brilliancy 
of his eyes clouded, and he rested his chin in his hands 
again, puffing at his cigar tenaciously, his gaze lost in the 
cloud of smoke. He thought wistfully of the hour of 
nightfall, wishing it already here; of the return from the 


[11] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


bull-ring, sweaty and tired, but with the joy of danger 
conquered, the appetites awakened, a mad desire for 
sport, and the certainty of a few days of safety and rest. 

If God would protect him as heretofore he was going 
to feast with the appetite of his days of poverty and 
starvation, get a little drunk, and go in search of a cer- 
tain girl who sang in a music-hall, whom he had seen 
on his last trip without having a chance to cultivate 
her acquaintance. Leading this life of continual change 
from one end of the Peninsula to the other he did not 
have time for much in the way of pleasure. 

Enthusiastic friends who wished to see the swordsman 
before going to breakfast at their homes began entering 
the dining-room. They were old admirers anxious to 
figure in a banderia and to have an idol; they had made 
the young Gallardo the matador of their choice, and they 
gave him sage counsel, frequently recalling their old- 
time adoration for Lagartijo or Frascuelo. 

In addressing Gallardo they called him thou, with 
gracious familiarity, while he put don before their names 
with the traditional class distinction that still exists 
between the bull-fighter risen from the social subsoil 
and his admirers. These men linked their enthusiasm 
with memories of the past to make the young matador 
feel their superiority of years and experience. They 
talked of the old plaza of Madrid where only bulls that 
were bulls and bull-fighters that were bull-fighters were 
recognized. Coming down to the present, they trembled 
with emotion on mentioning the Negro, Frascuelo. 

“Tf thou hadst seen him! But thou and those of thy 
time were at the breast then, or were not even born.” 

Other enthusiasts began entering the dining-room, 


[12] 





THE HERO AND THE PUBLIC 


poorly clad and hungry-looking; obscure newspaper re- 
porters; and men of problematical profession who ap- 
peared as soon as the news of Gallardo’s arrival was cir- 
culated, besieging him with praises and petitions for 
tickets. Common enthusiasm jostled them against great 
merchants or public functionaries, who discussed bull- 
fighting affairs with them warmly, regardless of their 
beggarly aspect. 

All, on seeing the swordsman, embraced him or shook 
his hand with an accompaniment of questions and ex- 
clamations. : 

“ Juanillo— how goes it with Carmen?” 

“Well, thanks.” 

“And how is your mother, Sefiora Angustias? ” 

“Fine, thanks. She’s at La Rincona’.” 

“And your sister and your little nephews? ” 

* As usual, thanks.” 

“And that good-for-nothing brother-in-law of yours, 
how is he?” 

“He ’s all right—as much of a gabbler as ever.” 

“Are there any additions to the family? Any expecta- 
tions?” 

“ No—not even that.” 

He made a fingernail crackle between his teeth with 
a strong negative expression and then began returning 
the questions to the new arrivals, of whose life he knew 
nothing beyond their inclination for the art of bull- 
fighting. 

“ And how is your family —all-right? Well, glad to 
hear it. Sit down and have something.” 

Then he inquired about the condition of the bulls that 
were to be fought within a few hours, for all these friends 


[ 13 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


had come from the plaza and from seeing the separation 
and penning in of the animals; and, with professional 
curiosity, he asked news of the Café Inglés, a favorite 
gathering place of bull-fight fans. 

It was the first bull-fight of the spring season, and 
Gallardo’s enthusiasts showed great hopes, remembering 
the glowing accounts in the newspapers of his recent 
triumphs in other towns of Spain. He was the bull- 
fighter who had the most contracts. Since the Easter 
corrida in Seville (the first important one of the tau- 
rine year) Gallardo had gone from plaza to plaza killing 
bulls. 

When August and September came, he would have 
to spend his nights on the train «.1u his afternoons in the 
rings, without time to rest. His agent at Seville was 
almost crazy, so besieged was he by letters and tele- 
grams, not knowing how to harmonize so many petitions 
for contracts with the exigencies of time. The after- 
noon before he had fought at Ciudad Real and, still 
dressed in his spangled costume, he had boarded the 
train to reach Madrid by morning. He had spent a 
wakeful night, only napping occasionally, crouched in 
the portion of a seat left him by the other passengers 
who crowded close together to give some chance for 
rest to this man who was to expose his life on the 
morrow, and was to afford them the joy of a tragic emo- 
_ tion without danger to themselves. 

The enthusiasts admired his physical endurance, and 
the rash daring with which he threw himself upon the 
bulls at the moment of killing. 

“We will see what thou art going to do this after- 
noon,” they said with the fervor of true believers. “ The 
devotees expect a great deal of thee. Thou wilt win 


[14] 





THE HERO AND THE PUBLIC 


many favors, surely. We shall see if thou dost as well 
as at Seville.” 

His admirers now began to disperse to go home to 
breakfast so as to be able to reach the bull-fight at an 
early hour. Gallardo, finding himself alone, was prepar- 
ing to retire to his room, impelled by the nervous 
restlessness that dominated him. A man, leading two 
children by the hand, passed through the doorway of the 
dining-room, paying no attention to the questions of the 
servants. He smiled seraphically on seeing the bull- 
fighter, and advanced, dragging the little boys, his eyes 
glued upon him, taking no thought as to his feet. 
Gallardo recognized him.. 

“How are you, Gdouiacher? ” 

And then followed the customary questions regarding 
the health of the family. The man turned to his sons, 
saying gravely: 

“There he is! Are ye not miesniseranys shing me about 
him? Just like he is in the pictures.” 

The two little fellows reverently contemplated the 
hero whom they had so often seen in the prints that 
adorned the rooms of their poor home; he seemed to 
them a supernatural being whose heroic deeds and riches 
were their greatest marvel as they began to take notice 
of the things of this world. 

“Juanillo, kiss thy godfather’s hand.” 

The smaller of the two boys dashed his red face, 
freshly scrubbed by his mother in preparation for this 
visit, against the swordsman’s right hand. Gallardo 
patted his head absent-mindedly. It was one of the 
many godchildren he had throughout Spain. His enthu- 
siastic friends obliged him to be godfather in baptism 
to their children, believing thus to assure them a future. 


[15] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


To exhibit himself at baptism after baptism was one of 
the consequences of his glory. This godchild recalled to 
his memory the hard times when he was at the beginning 
of his career, and he felt a certain gratitude to the father 
for the faith he had shown in him in spite of the lack of 
it in every one else. 

“And how is business, compadre?”’ asked Gallardo. 
“ Are things going better? ” 

The aficionado made a wry face. He was living, thanks 
to his commissions in the barley market, barely living, 
no more. Gallardo looked compassionately at his mean 
dress—a poor man’s Sunday best. 

“You want to see the bull-fight, don’t you, compadre ? 
Go up to my room and let Garabato give you a ticket. 
Good-bye, my good fellow. Here, take this to buy your- 
selves something.” 

As his godson kissed his right hand again, the bull- 
fighter handed the boys a couple of duros with his left. 
The father dragged away his offspring with expressions 
of gratitude, not making it clear in his confusion whether 
his enthusiasm were for the gift to the children or for 
the ticket for the corrida which the swordsman’s servant 
was about to give him. 

Gallardo allowed a few moments to elapse, so that he 
would not meet the enthusiast and his children again 
in his room. Then he looked at his watch. One 
o’clock! How long it was yet before the hour for the 
bull-fight! 

As Gallardo walked out of the dining-room and started 
toward the stairway a crowd of curiosity-seekers and 
starvelings hanging around the street door, attracted 
by the presence of the bull-fighter, rushed in. Pushing 


[ 16 ] 





THE HERO AND THE PUBLIC 


the servants aside, an irruption of beggars, vagabonds, 
and newsboys filed into the vestibule. 

The imps with their bundles of papers under one arm 
took off their caps, cheering with lusty familiarity. 

“Gallardo! Hurrah for Gallardo!” 

The most audacious among them grasped his hand and 
pressed it firmly and shook it in all directions, anxious 
to prolong as much as possible this contact with the 


| great man of the people whose picture they had seen 
| in the newspapers. Then they rudely invited their com- 
| panions to participate in this glory. 


“Shake hands with him! He won’t get mad. Why, 
he ’s all right.” 

They almost knelt before the bull-fighter, so great was 
their respect for him. Other curious ones, with unkempt 
beards, dressed in old clothes that had once been elegant, 
moved about the idol in their worn shoes and held their 
grimy hats out to him, talking to him in low tones, call- 
ing him Don Juan to differentiate themselves from the 
enthusiastic and irreverent mob. As they told him. of 
their misery they solicited alms, or more audacious, they 
begged him, ‘in the name of their devotion to the game, 
for a ticket for the bull-fight,— with the intention of 
selling it immediately. 

Gallardo defended himself, laughing at this avalanche 
that pushed and shoved him, the hotel clerks being quite 
unable to defend him, so awed were they by the respect 
that popularity inspires. He searched in all his pockets 
till they were empty, distributing aaa deen blindly 
among the greedy, outstretched hands. 

“ There ’s none left now. The coal’s all burnt up! Let 
me alone, pesterers.” 


29. 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Pretending to be annoyed by this popularity which 
really flattered him, he opened a passage for himself by 
a push with his strong arms and escaped by the stairway, 
running up the steps with the agility of an athlete, while ~ 
the servants, no longer restrained by his presence, swept 
and pushed the crowd toward the street. 

Gallardo passed the room occupied by Garabato and 
saw his servant through the half-opened door bending 
over valises and boxes getting his costume ready for the 
bull-fight. 

Finding himself alone in his room the pleasant excite- 
ment caused by the avalanche of his admirers instantly 
vanished. The unhappy moments of these bull-fighting 
days had come, the trepidation of the last hours before 
going to the plaza. Miura bulls and the public of Ma- 
drid! The danger which, when he faced it, seemed to 
intoxicate him and increase his boldness, caused him 
bitter anguish now in his solitude, and seemed to him 
something supernatural, awful, on account of its un- 
certainty. 

He felt crushed, as if suddenly the fatigue of the hid- 
eous night before had fallen upon him. He had a desire 
to lie down and rest on the bed at the other end of the 
room, when again anxiety over what awaited him, doubt- 
ful and mysterious, drove away his drowsiness. 

He strode restlessly up and down the room and lighted 
another Havana by the end of the one he had just 
consumed. 

How would this season which he was about to open in 
Madrid end for him? What would his enemies say? 
How would his professional rivals succeed? He had 
killed many Miuras— well, they were bulls like all the 


[ 18 ] 


THE HERO AND THE PUBLIC 


others; but he thought of his comrades who had fallen 
in the ring, almost all of them victims of the animals 
of that stock. Accursed Miuras!- It was for a good 
reason that he and other swordsmen made out their 
contracts for a thousand pesefas more when they had to 
fight animals of this herd. 

He continued wandering about the room with nervous 
step. He stopped to contemplate stupidly well-known 
objects that were a part of his equipment; then he let 
himself fall into an easy chair as if attacked by sudden 
weakness. He looked at his watch repeatedly. It was 
not yet two o’clock. How the time crept! 

He wished that, as a stimulant for his nerves, the hour 
for dressing and going to the ring would come. The 
people, the noise, the popular curiosity, the desire to 
show himself calm and happy in the presence of the 
enthusiastic populace, and above all the very nearness . 
of danger, actual and personal, instantly effaced this 
anguish of isolation in which the swordsman, without 
the aid of external excitement, felt something akin to 
fear. 

The need of diverting himself caused him to search 
in the inside pocket of his waistcoat. He drew out with 
his pocket-book a little envelope which emitted a mild, 
sweet perfume. Standing by a window through which 
the obscure light of an inner courtyard entered, he con- 
templated the envelope which had been handed him when 
he arrived at the hotel, admiring the fine and genteel 
elegance of the characters in which the address was 
written. 

He drew out the sheet of paper, breathing in its in- 
definable perfume with delight. Ah! people of high birth 


[ 19] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


who have travelled widely,— how they reveal their inim- 
itable superiority, even in the smallest details! 

Gallardo, as though he felt that his person preserved 
the keen stench of the misery of his earlier years, per- 
fumed himself with offensive profusion. His enemies 
joked about the athletic youth who, by his excessive 
use of perfumes, gave the lie to his sex. His admirers 
smiled at this weakness, but very often had to turn 
away their faces, nauseated by the heavy odors he carried 
with him. 

A whole perfumery shop accompanied him on his 
travels, and the most effeminate essences anointed his 
body when he descended into the arena among the dead 
horses, and foul débris characteristic of the place. 
Certain enthusiastic cocoties, whom he had met on a trip 
to the towns in the south of France, had given him the 
secret of mixtures and. combinations of strange per- 
fumes; but the fragrance of the letter —ihat was like 
the person of her who had written it—-a mysterious 
odor, delicate and indefinable, that could not be imitated, 
that seemed to emanate from her aristocratic body; it 
was what he called “the odor of a lady” ! 

He read and re-read the letter with a beaming smile 
of delight and pride. It was not a great matter; half 
a dozen lines—a greeting from Seville, wishing him 
good luck in Madrid; anticipated congratulations for 
his triumphs. That letter could have gone astray with- 
out in the least compromising the woman who wrote 
it. “Friend Gallardo” at the beginning, in elegant let- 
tering that seemed to tickle the bull-fighter’s eyes, and 
at the end, “ Your friend, Sol”; all in a coldly friendly 
style, addressing him as you, with an amiable tone of 


[ 20 ] 


“THE HERO AND THE PUBLIC. 


superiority as though the words were not from equal 
to equal but had descended mercifully from on high. 

. The bull-fighter, gazing at the letter with the adoration 
which a man of the people has for caste, though little 
versed in reading, could not escape a certain feeling of 
annoyance, as if he beheld himself patronized. 

“That baggage,” he murmured. “That woman! No 
one living can break her pride. Look how she talks to 
me-—— you! you! —and to me!” 

But happy memories brought a satisfied smile to his 
lips. This frigid style was for letters; these were the 
customs of a great lady; the precautions of a woman who 
had travelled over the world. His annoyance changed to 
admiration. 

“ What that woman doesn’t know! And such a cau- 
tious creature!” 

And in his smile appeared a professional satisfaction, 
the pride of the tamer who, appreciating the strength of 
the conquered wild beast, extols his own deed. 

While Gallardo was admiring this letter his servant 
Garabato came and went, bringing clothing and boxes 
which he left on the bed. 

He was a fellow of quiet movements and agile hands, 
and seemed to take no notice of the presence of the bull- 
fighter. For some years he had accompanied the diestro 
on all his travels as sword-bearer. He had commenced 
in Seville at the same time as Gallardo, serving first as 
capeador, but the hard blows were reserved for him, while 
advancement and glory were for his companion. He was 
little, dark, and of weak muscles, and a tortuous and 
poorly united gash scarred with a whitish pot-hook his 
wrinkled, flaccid oldish face. It was from a thrust of 


[21] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


a bull’s horn which had left him almost dead in the 
plaza of a certain town, and to this atrocious wound 
others were added that disfigured the hidden parts of his 
body. 

By a miracle he escaped with his life from his appren- 
ticeship as a bull-fighter, and the cruellest part of it all 
was that the people laughed at his misfortunes, taking 
pleasure in seeing him stamped on and routed by the 
bulls. Finally his total eclipse took place, and he agreed 
to be the attendant, the confidential servant, of his old 
comrade. He was Gallardo’s most fervent admirer, al- 
though he abused the confidence of intimacy by allowing 
himself to give advice and to criticise. Had he been in 
his master’s skin, he would have done better at certain 
moments. Gallardo’s friends found cause for laughter 
in the frustrated ambitions of the sword-bearer, but he 
paid no attention to their jokes. Renounce the bulls? 
Never! And so that the memory of his past should not 
be wholly obliterated he combed his coarse hair in shin- 
ing locks over his ears and wore on the back of his head 
the long and sacred great lock of hair, the coleta of his 
youthful days, the professional emblem that distin- 
guished him from common mortals. 

When Gallardo was angry with him his fierce passion 
always threatened this capillary adornment. 

“ And thou dost wear a coleta, shameless one? I’m 
going to cut that rat’s tail off for thee — brazen-face! 
Maleta!” : 

Garabato received these threats with resignation, but 
he took his revenge by shutting himself up in the silence 
of a superior man, answering the joy of the master with 
shrugs of his shoulders when the latter, on returning 


[ 22 ] 


} 


THE HERO AND THE PUBLIC 


from the plaza of an afternoon in a happy mood, asked 
him with infantile satisfaction: 

“ What didst thou think of it? Did Ido well, sure?” 

On account of their juvenile comradeship he retained 
the privilege of saying thou to his master. He could not 
talk to the maestro in any other way, but the thou was ac- 
companied by a grave gesture and an expression of in- 
genuous respect. His familiarity was like that of the 
ancient shield-bearers to the knights of adventure. 

From his collar up, including the tail on the back of 
his head, he was a bull-fighter; the rest of his person re- 
sembled a tailor and a valet at the same time. He 
dressed in a suit of English cloth, a present from the 
Sefor, wearing the lapels stuck full of pins, and with sev- 
eral threaded needles on one sleeve. His dry, dark hands 
possessed a feminine delicacy for handling and arranging 
things. 

When he had placed in order all that was necessary 
for the master’s dressing, he looked over the numerous 
objects to assure himself that nothing was lacking. Then 
he planted himself in the middle of the room and with- 
out looking at Gallardo, as if he were speaking to him- 
self, he said in a hoarse voice and with a stubborn 
accent: 

“Two o'clock!” 

Gallardo lifted his head nervously, as if he had not 
noticed the presence of his servant until then. He put 
the letter in his pocket and went to the lower end of the 
room with a certain hesitancy, as if he wished to delay 
the moment of dressing. 

“Is everything ready?” 

But suddenly his pale face colored with violent emo- 


[ 23 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


tion. His eyes opened immeasurably wide as if they 
had just suffered the shock of a frightful surprise. 

“What clothes hast thou laid out?” 

Garabato pointed to the bed, but before he could speak 
the anger of the maestro fell upon him, loud and terrible. 

“Curses on thee! Dost thou know nothing of the af- 
fairs of the profession? Thou has just come from hay- 
making, maybe? Bull-fightin Madrid, with Miura bulls, 
and thou dost get me out a green costume, the same that 
poor Manuel el Espartero’ wore! My bitterest enemy 
could n’t do worse, thou-»more than shameless one! It 
seems as if thou wishes: to see me killed, malaje! ” 

His anger increasec .s he considered the enormity of 
this carelessness, which was like a challenge to ill for- 
tune. To fight in Madrid in a green costume after what 
had happened! His eyes flashed with hostile fire as if he . 
had just received a traitorous attack; the whites of his 
eyes grew red, and he seemed about to fall upon poor 
Garabato with his rough bull-fighter hands. 

A discreet knock on the door of the room ended this 
scene. 

“ Come in!” 

A young man entered, dressed in light clothes, with a 
red cravat, and carrying a Cordovan sombrero in a hand 
beringed with great brilliants. Gallardo recognized him 
instantly, with that gift for remembering faces possessed 
by all who live before the public. 

He changed suddenly from. anger to smiling amiability 
as if the visit were a sweet surprise. It was a friend 
from Bilbao, an enthusiastic admirer, a champion of his 
‘glory. That was all he could remember. But his name? 
He met so many! What could his name be? The only 


[ 24 ] 


THE HERO AND THE PUBLIC 


thing he knew for certain was that he must address him 
by thou, for an old friendship existed between the two. 

“Sit down! What a surprise! When didst thou 
come? The family well?” 

And the admirer sat down with the satisfaction of a 
devotee who enters the sanctuary of the idol determined 
not to move until the last instant, gratifying himself by 
the attention of the bull-fighter’s thou, and calling him 
Juan at every two words so that furniture, walls, and 
whoever might pass along the corridor should know of 
his intimacy with the great man. He had arrived from 
Bilbao this morning and woulc’teturn on the following 
day. He took the trip for no 6¢ $r purpose than to see 
Gallardo. He had read of his great exploits; the season 
was beginning well; this afternoon would be fine! He 
had been at the sorting of the bulls where he had espe- 
cially noticed a dark beast that would undoubtedly yield 
great sport in Gallardo’s hands. 

“ What costume shall I get out?” interrupted Gara- 
bato, with a voice that seemed even more hoarse with the 
desire to show himself submissive. 

“ The red one, the tobacco-colored, the blue — any one — 
thou wishest.” 

Another knock sounded on the door and a new visitor 
appeared. It was Doctor Ruiz, the popular physician 
who for thirty years had been signing the medical cer- 
tificates of all the injured and treating every bull-fighter 
that fell wounded in the plaza of Madrid. 

Gallardo admired him and regarded him as the highest 
representative of universal science, although he indulged 
in good-natured jokes about his kindly disposition and 
his lack of care in his dress. His admiration was like 


[ 25 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


that of the populace which only recognizes wisdom in a 
man of ill appearance and oddity of character that 
makes him different from ordinary mortals. 

“He is a saint,” Gallardo used to say, “a wise fellow, 
with wheels in his head, but as good as good bread, and 
he never has a pesefa. He gives away all he has and he 
accepts whatever they choose to give him.” 

Two grand passions animated the doctor’s life, revolu- 
tion and bulls. A vague and tremendous revolution was _ 
to come that would leave in Europe nothing now ex- 
isting; an anarchistic republic which he did not take the 
trouble to explain, and as to which he was only clear in 
his exterminating negations. The bull-fighters talked to 
him as to a father. He spoke as a familiar to all of them, 
and no more was needed than to get a telegram from a 
distant part of the Peninsula, for the good doctor to take 
the train on the instant to go to treat the horn-wound 
received by one of his boys with no other hope of 
recompense than whatever they might freely wish to 
give him. 

On seeing Gallardo after a long absence he embraced 
him, pressing his flabby abdomen against the other’s 
body which seemed made of bronze. Bravo! He 
thought the espada looking better than ever. 

* And how is the Republic getting on, doctor? When 
is it going to happen?” asked Gallardo with an Andalus- 
ian drawl. “ Nacional says it ’s going to come off soon; 
that it will be here one of these days.” 

“ And what does that matter to thee, rogue? Let poor 
Nacional alone. The best thing for him to do is to stick 
in his banderillas better. As for thee, the only thing that 
should interest thee is to keep on killing bulls, like the 


[ 26 } 





THE HERO AND THE PUBLIC 


very God himself. A fine afternoon this is going to be. 
They tell me that the bulls —” 

But here the young man who had seen the sorting of 
the animals and wished to talk about it, interrupted the 
doctor to tell of a dark bull that had caught his eye, and 
from which he expected the greatest prowess. The two 
men, who had remained silent after bowing to one an- 
other, were face to face, and Gallardo thought an intro- 
duction necessary. But what was the name of that friend 
whom he addressed as thou? He scratched his head, 
knitting his eyebrows with an effort at recollection, but 
his indecision was short. 

“Listen! What is thy name? Pardon, thou seest — 
with meeting so many people—” 

The young man concealed beneath a smile of approba- 
tion his disenchantment at seeing himself forgotten by 
the master, and gave his name. Gallardo on hearing it 
felt the past come back suddenly to his memory, and 
made reparation for his forgetfulness by adding after the 
name, “wealthy miner from Bilbao.” Then he presented 
the “famous Doctor Ruiz” and both men, as if they had 
known one another all their lives, united by the enthu- 
siasm of a common devotion, began to ‘gossip about the 
bulls of the afternoon. 

“Sit down.” Gallardo motioned to a sofa at the 
end of the room. “Youll not be in the way there. 
Talk and don’t notice me. I am going to dress. I think 
that, as we ’re all men—” 

And he took off his clothes, remaining in his under- 
garments. 

Seated on a chair in the centre of the archway that 
divided the little reception room from the sleeping al- 


[ 27 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


cove, he gave himself up to the hands of Garabato, who 
had opened a bag of Russia-leather and was taking out of 
it an almost feminine necessaire for the swordsman’s toilet. 

In spite of the fact that the latter was carefully shaved 
he lathered his face again and passed the razor over his 
cheeks with the skill of one daily accustomed to the 
task. After washing himself Gallardo returned to his 
seat. The servant deluged his hair with brilliantine and 
other perfumes, combing it in curls over his forehead and 
temples; then he undertook the arrangement of the pro- 
fessional emblem, the sacred coleta. 

With a certain respect he combed the long lock that 
crowned the occiput of the maestro, braided it and, post- 
poning the completion of the operation, fixed it on the 
top of his head with two hairpins, leaving its final ar- 
rangement until later. Now he must occupy himself 
with the feet, and he stripped the athlete of his socks, 
leaving him dressed only in an undershirt and drawers 
of silk mesh. 

Gallardo’s strong muscles were outlined beneath this 
clothing in vigorous protuberances. A hollow in one 
thigh showed a deep scar where the flesh had disap- 
peared on account of a horn-stab. Signs of old wounds 
were marked by white spots on the brown skin of his 
arms. His breast, dark and free from hair, was crossed 
by two irregular purplish lines, with a round depression, 
as if it had served as a mould for a coin. But his gladia- 
torial person exhaled an odor of clean brave flesh, min- 
gled with strong but effeminate perfumes. 

Garabato, with an armful of cotton and white band- 
ages, knelt at the swordsman’s feet. 

“Like the ancient gladiators,” said Dr. Ruiz, inter- 


[ 28 ] 











THE HERO AND THE PUBLIC 


rupting his conversation with the man from Bilbao; 
“thou hast become a Roman, Juan.” 

“Age, doctor,” answered Gallardo with a certain 
melancholy. “ We all have to grow old. When I used 
to fight bulls and hunger too, I did n’t need this — and I 
had feet of iron in doing the cape-work.” 

Garabato introduced little tufts of cotton between his 
master’s toes; then he covered the soles and upper part 
with a layer of this soft material and, putting on the 
bandages, began to bind them in tight spirals, as the an- 
cient mummies are enwrapped. To fasten this arrange- 
ment he took the threaded needles he wore on one 
sleeve and carefully sewed the ends of the bandages. 

Gallardo stamped on the floor with his compressed 
feet, which seemed firmer inside their soft swathing. 
Thus encased they felt strong and agile. The servant 
then drew on long stockings which reached half way up 
his leg; they were thick and flexible like leggings — the 
only defence of the legs under the silk of the fighting 
dress. i 

“Be careful about wrinkles. Look out, Garabato, I 
don’t like to wear pockets!” 

And he stood up to look at himself in the two panels 
of the mirror, stooping to pass his hands over his legs 
and smooth out the wrinkles. Over the white stockings 
Garabato drew on others of rose-colored silk. Then 
Gallardo thrust his feet into his low shoes, choosing 
them from among several pairs that Garabato had put 
on a trunk, all with white soles and perfectly new. 

Now the real task of dressing began. The servant 
handed him his fighting trousers held by the legs,— to- 
bacco-colored silk with heavy embroideries of gold on 


[ 29 | 


gy 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


their seams. Gallardo put them on and the thick cords 
with gold tassels that closed the knees, congesting the 
leg with artificial fulness, hung to his feet. 

Gallardo told his servant to tighten them as much as 
he could, at the same time swelling up the muscles of 
his legs. This operation was one of the most important. 
A bull-fighter must wear the machos well tightened. And 
Garabato, with deft speed, converted the dangling cords 
into little bows. 

The master put on the fine batiste shirt which the ser- 
vant offered him, with gatherings on the bosom, soft and 
transparent as a feminine garment. Garabato after but- 
toning it tied the knot of the long cravat that fell in a 
red line, dividing the bosom until it was lost in the waist- 
band of the trousers. 

The most complicated part of the dressing still re- 
mained, the faja, a band of silk nearly five yards long, 
that seemed to fill the whole apartment, Garabato man- 
aging it with the skill of long practice. 

The swordsman walked to the other extreme of the 
room where his friends were and put one of the ends 
around his waist. 

“Come, be very careful!” he said to his servant. 
“Make the most of thy little skill.” 

Slowly turning on his heels he drew near his servant 
who held one end of the belt, thus winding it around his 
body in regular curves, giving greater elegance to his 
waist. Garabato, with rapid movements of his hands, 
changed the folds of the band of silk. With some turns 
the belt rolled double, with others wide open, and it all 
adjusted itself to the bull-fighter’s form, smooth as if 
it were a single piece, without wrinkles or puffs. Gal- 


[ 30 ] 
“8 





THE HERO AND THE PUBLIC 


lardo, scrupulous and fastidious in the arrangement of 
his person, stopped his progress in the course of the 
rotatory journey to go back two or three times and im- 
prove upon the work. 

“It isn’t good,” he said with ill-humor. “ Damn it 
all! Be careful Garabato.” 

After many halts Gallardo reached the end with the 
entire piece of silk wound around his waist. The skil- 
ful servant had sewed and put pins and safety pins all 
over his master’s body, converting his clothes into one 
single piece. To get out of them the bull-fighter would 
have to resort to scissors and to others’ hands. He 
could not divest himself of a single garment until his re- 
turn to the hotel, unless the bull should accomplish it 
for him in the open plaza and they should finish un- 
dressing him in the hospital. 

Gallardo seated himself again and Garabato went 
about the business of arranging the queue, taking out the 
hairpins and adding the mona, the black rosette with 
streamers which recalled the ancient head-dress of early 
bull-fighting times. 

The master, as if he id to put off the moment of 
final encasement in the costume, stretched himself, asked 
Garabato for the cigar that he had left on the little 
night-table, and demanded the time, thinking that all the 
clocks were fast. sy 

“It’s early yet. ‘Fhe boys haven’t come. I don’t like 
to go to the plaza Be It makes a fellow tired to be 
there waiting!” 

A servant of the hotel announced that the carriage 
with the cuadrilla had arrived. 

It was time to go. There was no excuse for delaying 


ga: 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


the moment of setting forth. He put over his belt the 
gold-embroidered vest and outside of this the jacket, a 
shining garment with enormous embossments, heavy as 
armor and resplendent with light as a glowing coal. The 
silk, color of tobacco, was only visible on the under side 
of the arms and in two triangles on the back. Almost the 
entire garment disappeared under the heavy layer of 
trimmings and gold-embroidered designs forming flowers 
with colored stones in their corollas. The shoulder pieces | 
were heavy masses of gold embroidery from which fell — 
a fringe of the same metal. The garment was edged with . 
a close fringe that moved at every step. From the 
golden opening of the pockets the points of two hand- — 
kerchiefs peeped forth, red like the cravat and the tie: 

The cap! 

'.Garabato took out of an oval box with great care the 
fighting cap, black and shining, with two pendent tassels, 
like ears of passementerie. Gallardo put it on, taking 
care that the coleta should remain unhidden, hanging sym- 
metrically down his back. 

The cape! 

Garabato.caught up the cape from off a chair, 
the capa de gala, a princely mantle of silk of the same 
shade as the dress and equally burdened with gold em- 
broidery. Gallardo hung it over one shoulder and looked 
at himself in the glass, satisfied with his preparations. It 
was not bad. 

“To the plaza!” 

His two friends took their farewells hastily and called 
a cab to follow him. Garabato put under one arm a great 
bundle of red cloths, from the ends of which peeped the 
hilts and guards of many swords. 


[ 32 ] 


CHAPTER II 


THE MATADOR AND THE LADY 


S$ Gallardo descended to the vestibule of the hotel 

_he saw the street filled with a dense and noisy 
crowd as though some great event had taken place. The 
buzzing of the multitude outside the door reached his 
ears. The proprietor and all his family appeared with 
extended hands as if they would bid him farewell for 
a long journey. 

“ Good luck! May all go well with you!” 

The servants, forgetting distance at the impulse of 
enthusiasm and emotion, also held their right hands out 
to him. 

“ Good luck, Don Juan!” 

And he turned in all directions smiling, regardless of 
the frightened faces of the ladies of the hotel. 

“ Thanks, many thanks! See you later.” 

He was a different man. From the moment he had 
hung the glittering cape over one shoulder a persistent 
smile illuminated his countenance. He was pale, with 
a sweaty pallor like that of the sick; but he smiled, sat- 
isfied to live and to show himself in public, adopting _ 
his new pose with the instinctive freedom of one who but 
needs an incentive to parade before the people. 

He swaggered with arrogance, puffing occasionally at 
the cigar he carried in his left hand. He moved his hips 
haughtily under his handsome cape and strode with a 
firm step and with the flippancy of a gay youth. 


[ 33 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


“Come, gentlemen, make way! Many thanks; many 
thanks.” 

And he tried to preserve his dress from unclean con- 

tact as way was made among an ill-clad, enthusiastic 
crowd which surged against the doors of the hotel. 
They had no money with which to go to the bull-fight 
but they took advantage of the opportunity of pressing 
the hand of the famous Gallardo, or of at least touching 
his garments. 
_ A coach drawn by four richly caparisoned mules with 
tassels and bells stood waiting at the door. Garabato 
had already seated himself on the box with his bundle 
of muletas and swords. Three bull-fighters were inside 
with their capes over their knees, dressed in gayly colored 
clothes embroidered with as great profusion as the mas- 
ter’s, but in silver. 

Pressed onward by the popular ovation, and having 
to defend himself with his elbows from greedy manes, 
Gallardo reached the carriage-step. 

“ Good-afternoon, gentlemen,” he said shortly to the 
men of his cuadrilla. 

He seated himself at the back so that all could see him, 
and smiled with responsive nods to the shouts of some 
ragged women and to the short applause begun by some 
newsboys. 

The carriage started with all the impetus of the spir- 
ited mules, filling the street with gay ringing. The mob 
parted to give passage but many rushed at the carriage 
as though they would fall under its wheels. Hats and 
canes were waved; an explosion of enthusiasm burst 
from the crowd, one of those contagions that agitate and 
madden the masses at certain times — making every one 
shout without knowing why. 


[34] 





ie ee ail 


THE MATADOR AND THE LADY 


“Hurrah for the brave! Viva Espana! ”’ 

Gallardo, ever pale and smiling, saluted, repeating 
“many thanks,” moved by the contagion of popular en- 
thusiasm and proud of his standing which united his 
name to that of his native land. 

A troop of dishevelled youngsters ran after the coach 
at full speed, as though convinced that, at the end of 
the mad race, something extraordinary surely awaited 
them. 

For at least an hour Alcala Street had been like a 
river of carriages that flowed toward the outskirts of the 
city between two banks of close-packed foot passengers. 
All kinds of vehicles, ancient and modern, figured in this 
tumultuous and noisy emigration, from the ancient dil- 
igence, brought to light like an anachronism, to the auto- 
mobile. Crowded tramways passed with groups of peo- 
ple overflowing on their steps. Omnibuses carried 
people to the corner of Seville Street, while the conductor 
shouted “To the plaza! To the plaza!” Tasselled 
mules with jingling bells trotted ahead of open carriages 
in which rode women in white maniillas with bright 
flowers in their hair; every instant exclamations of alarm 
were heard at the escape, by apelike agility, of some boy 
beneath the wheels of a carriage as he crossed by leaps 
from one sidewalk to the other defying the current of 
vehicles. Automobile horns tooted; coachmen yelled; 
newsboys shouted the page with the picture and history 
of the bulls that were to be fought, or the likeness and 
biography of the famous matadores, and from time to time 
an explosion of curiosity swelled the deafening roar of 
the crowd. 

Among the dark steeds of the mounted police rode 
gayly dressed caballeros with their legs rigidly encased 


[35] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


in yellow leggings, wearing gilded jackets and beaver 
hats with heavy tassels in lieu of a cockade, mounted 
on thin and miserable hacks. They were the picadores. 
Aft on the crupper, behind the high Moorish saddle, 
rode an impish figure dressed in red, the mono sabio, or 
servant who had brought the troop of horses to their 
hostelry. 

The cuadrillas passed in open coaches, and the embroid- 
ery of the bull-fighters, reflecting the afternoon light, 
seemed to dazzle the crowd and excite its enthusiasm. 
“That is Fuentes!” “That is Bomba!” And the 
people, pleased with the identification, followed the 
retreating carriages with greedy stare as if something 
startling were going to happen and they feared to be too 
late. 

From the top of the hill on Alcala Street the broad 
straight road shone white in the sun, with its rows of 
trees turning green at the breath of spring, the balconies 
black with people, and the highway only visible at inter- 
vals beneath the ant-like movement of the crowd and the 
rolling of the coaches descending to the Fountain of 
Cibeles. Here the hill rose again amid groves and tall 
buildings and the Puerta de Alcala closed the perspective 
like a triumphal arch, rearing its perforated white mass 
against the blue space in which flecks of clouds floated 
like solitary swans. 

Gallardo rode in silence, responding to the multitude 
with a fixed smile. Since his greeting to the banderilleros 
he had not spoken a word. They were also silent and 
pale with anxiety over the unknown. Being all bull- 
fighters together, they put aside as useless the gallantries 
necessary before the public. © 


[ 36 ] 





THE MATADOR AND THE LADY 


A mysterious influence, seemed to tell the crowd of the 
passing of the last cuadrilla that wound its way to the 
plaza. The vagabonds that ran behind the coach shout- 
ing after Gallardo had been outstripped and the group 
scattered among the carriages, but in spite of this the 
people turned their heads as if they divined the proximity 
of the celebrated bull-fighter behind them and they 
stopped, lining up against the edge of the sidewalk to 
see him better. 

The women in the coaches in advance turned their 
heads, attracted by the jingling bells of the trotting 
mules. An indescribable roar rose from certain groups 
that barred the passage along the sidewalks. There were 
enthusiastic exclamations. Some waved their hats; 
others lifted canes and swung them in salutation. 

Gallardo responded to all with grinning smile but in. 
his preoccupation he seemed to take small account of 
these greetings. At his side rode Nacional, his confiden- 
tial servant, a banderillero, older than himself by ten years, 
a rugged, strong man with brows grown together and a 
grave visage. He was famous among the men of the 
profession for his good nature, his manliness, and his 
political enthusiasms. 

“ Juan— don’t complain of Madri’,” said Nacional; 
“thou art made with the public.” 

But Gallardo, as if he did not hear him and as if he 
wished to get away from the thoughts that occupied him, 
answered: 

“T feel it in my heart that something ’s going to hap- 
pen this afternoon.” 

When they arrived at Cibeles the coach stopped. A 
great funeral was coming along the Prado from the Cas- 


[ 37 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


tellana, cutting through the avalanche of carriages from 


Alcala Street. 

Gallardo turned paler, contemplating with angry eyes 
the passing of the cross and the defile of the priests who 
broke into a grave chant as they gazed, some with aver- 
sion, others with envy, at that God-forgotten multitude 
running after amusement. 

Gallardo made haste to take off his cap, in which he 
was imitated by all his bandecrilleros except Nacional. 

“But damn it!” yelled Gallardo, “uncover, condenao! ” 


He looked furious, as though he would strike him, con- 


vinced by some confused intuition that this rebellion 
would cause the most terrible misfortune to befall him. 

“Well, I take it off,” said Nacional with the ill grace 
of a thwarted child, as he saw the cross pass on, “I take 
it off, but it is to the dead.” 

They were detained some time to let the long cortége 
pass. 

“Bad sign!” muttered Gallardo in a voice trembling 
with anger. “ Whoever would have thought of bring- 
ing a funeral along the road to the plaza? Damn it! I 
say something ’s going to happen to-day!” 

Nacional smiled, shrugging his shoulders. 

“Superstitions and fanaticisms! Neither God nor Na- 
ture bothers over these things.” 

These words, which irritated Gallardo still more, 
caused the grave preoccupation of the other bull-fighters 
to vanish, and they began to joke about their companion 
as they did on all occasions when he dragged in his fa- 
vorite expression of “God or Nature.” 

When the road was clear the carriage began to move 
at the full speed of the mules, crowding along with the 


[ 38 ] 





: 
7 


THE MATADOR AND THE LADY 


other vehicles that flowed to the plaza. Arrived there it 
turned to the left toward the gate of the stables that led 
to the enclosures and stalls, obliged to move now at 
slower pace among the dense crowd. Another ovation to 
Gallardo when he descended from the coach followed by 
his banderilleros; blows and pushes to keep his dress from 
unclean contact; smiles of greeting; concealment of the 
right hand which all wished to press. 

“Make way, gentlemen! many thanks!” 

The large enclosure between the body of the plaza and 
the walls of the outbuildings was full of the curious who 
wished to see the bull-fighters at close range before tak- 
ing their seats. Above the heads of the crowd emerged 
the picadores and guards on horseback in their seventeenth 
century dress. At one side of the enclosure rose one- 
story brick buildings with vines over the doors and pots 
of flowers in the windows, a small community of offices, 
shops, stables, and houses in which lived the stable boys, 
the carpenters, and other employees of the bull-ring. 

The matador pressed forward laboriously among the 
assemblage. His name passed from mouth to mouth 
with exclamations of enthusiasm. 

“Gallardo! Here is Gallardo! Hurrah! Viva Es- 
pana!” 

And he, wholly preoccupied by the adoration of the 
public, advanced swaggering, serene as a god, happy and 
satisfied, as if he were assisting at a feast in his honor. 

Suddenly two arms encircled his neck, and a strong 
stench of wine assailed his nostrils. 

“You smasher of women’s hearts! You glorious one! 
Hurrah for Gallardo!” 

It was a man of decent appearance; he rested his head 


[39] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


on the swordsman’s shoulder and thus remained as though 
falling asleep in spite of his enthusiasm. Gallardo’s push- 
ing, and the pulling of his friends, freed the bull-fighter 
from this interminable embrace. The drunken man, find- 
ing himself separated from his idol, broke out in shouts of 
enthusiasm. “ Hurrah! Let all the nations of the world 
come to admire bull-fighters like this one and die of 
envy! They may have ships, they may have money, but 
that’s trivial! They have neither bulls nor youths like 
this — no one to outstrip him in bravery. Hurrah, my 
boy! Viva mi tierra!” 

Gallardo crossed a great white washed hall bare of 
furniture where his professional companions stood sur- 
rounded by enthusiastic groups. Way was immediately 
made among the crowd which obstructed a door, and he 
passed through it into a narrow, dark room, at the end of 
which shone the lights of the chapel. An ancient paint- 
ing representing the Virgin of the Dove hung over the 
back of the altar. Four candles were burning before it 
and branches of moth-eaten cloth flowers in vases of 
common earthenware were falling to dust. 

The chapel was full of people. The devotees of the 
humbler classes crowded in to see the great men close 
by. They remained in the dimness with uncovered head; 
some crowded into the foremost ranks, others stood on 
chairs and benches, the majority of them with their backs 
to the Virgin and looking greedily toward the door, ready 
to shout a name the instant they discerned the glitter of 
a spangled costume. 

The banderilleros and picadores, poor devils who were go- 
ing to expose their lives as much as were the maestros, 
scarcely raised the slightest murmur by their presence. 


[ 40 ] 


THE MATADOR AND THE LADY 


Only the most fervent enthusiasts recognized their 
nicknames. 

Suddenly a prolonged buzzing, a name repeated from 
mouth to mouth: 

“ Fuentes!— That is Fuentes!” 

And this elegant bull-fighter with his air of gentility 
and his cape over his shoulder advanced to the altar and 
bent one knee with theatrical arrogance, his gypsy-like 
eyes reflecting the lights and his graceful and agile body 
thrown back as he looked upward. As soon as his prayer 
was said and he had made the sign of the cross he rose, 
walking backwards toward the door without losing sight 
of the image, like a singer who retires bowing to the 
audience. 

Gallardo was more simple in his devotions. He en- 
tered swaggering with no less arrogance, cap in hand and 
his cape folded, but on finding himself in the presence 
of the image he fell on both knees and gave himself up 
to prayer, unconscious of the hundreds of eyes fixed on 
him. His simple Christian soul trembled with fear and 
remorse. He asked protection with the fervor of in- 
genuous men who live in continual danger and believe 
in all kinds of adverse influences and in supernatural 
protection. 

For the first time during the whole exciting day he 
thought of his wife and mother. Poor Carmen, there in 
Seville awaiting the telegram! Sefiora Angustias, happy 
with her chickens at the farm of La Rinconada, without 
knowing for a certainty in what place her son fought the 
bulls to-day! And he with the terrible presentiment 
that this afternoon something was going to happen! 
Virgin of the Dove! Some little protection! He would 


[ 41 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


be good, he would forget the other one, he would live as 
God commands. 

And with his superstitious spirit strengthened with 
this vain repentance, he left the chapel with troubled 
eyes, still deeply stirred and heedless of the people who 
obstructed the way. 

Outside in the room where the bull-fighters were wait- 
ing, a shaven-faced man, dressed in a black habit which 
he seemed to wear with a certain slovenliness, greeted 
him. 

“ Bad sign! ” murmured the bull-fighter, continuing on 
his way. “ When I say that something is going to hap- 
pen to-day —” 

The black-robed man was the chaplain of the plaza, 
an enthusiast in the art of bull-fighting, who had come 
with the Holy Oils beneath his habit. He was accom- 
panied by a neighbor who served him as sacristan in ex- 
change for a seat to see the bull-fight. On bull-fight days 
he hired a carriage, which the management paid for, and 
he chose by turns among his friends and protégés one on 
whom to confer the favor of the seat destined for the 
sacristan, beside his own in the front row near the doors 
of the bull-pen. 

The priest entered the chapel with a proprietary air, 
scandalized at the behavior of the congregation; all had 
their hats off, but were talking in a loud voice and some 
were even smoking. 

“Gentlemen, this is not a café. Be so kind as to go 
out. The bull-fight is going to begin.” 

This news caused a dispersion, while the priest took 
out the hidden Holy Oils and placed them in a box of 
painted wood. Then he too, as soon as he had secreted 


[ 42 ] 


THE MATADOR AND THE LADY 


the sacred articles, ran out to take his place in the plaza 
before the appearance of the cuadrilla. 

The crowd had disappeared. No one was to be seen in 
the enclosure but men dressed in silk and embroidery, 
yellow horsemen with great beaver hats, guards on horse- 
back, and the assistants in their suits of gold and blue. 

The bull-fighters formed with customary promptness 
before the horses’ gate beneath an arch that gave exit 
to the plaza, the maestros at the front, then the banderilleros 
keeping far apart, and behind them, in the enclosure itself, 
stamped the sturdy rough squadron of the picadores, 
smelling of burnt hide and dung, mounted on skeleton- 
like horses with one eye bandaged. As rearguard of this 
army the teams of mules intended for dragging out the 
slaughtered bulls fretted behind them; they were rest- 
less, vigorous animals with shining coats, covered with 
trappings of tassels and bells, and wore on their collars 
the waving national flag. 

Beyond the arch, above the wooden gates which half 
obstructed it, opened a narrow space, leaving visible a 
portion of the sky, the tiled roof of the plaza, and a sec- 
tion of seats with the compact multitude swarming like 
ants, amid which fans and papers seemed to flutter like 
gayly colored mosquitoes. Through this gallery entered 
a strong breeze —the respiration of an immense lung. 
An harmonious humming was borne on the undulations 
of the air, making certain distant music felt, rather di- 
vined than heard. 

About the archway peeped heads, many heads; those 
of the spectators on the nearby benches were thrust for- 
ward, curious to see the heroes without delay. 

Gallardo arranged himself in line with the other bull- 


[ 43 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


fighters, who exchanged among themselves grave inclina- 
tions of the head. They did not speak; they did not 
smile. Each one thought of himself, letting his imagina- 
tion fly far away; or he thought of nothing, lost in that 
intellectual void produced by emotion. They occupied 
themselves with a ceaseless arranging of the cape, throw- 
ing it loosely over the shoulder, rolling its ends about the 
waist, and trying to make their legs, encased in silk and 
gold, show agile and brave under this gorgeous funnel. 
Every face was pale, not with a deathly pallor, but bril- 
liant and livid, with the sweaty gloss of emotion. They 
thought of the arena, still unseen, experiencing that 
irresistible terror of events that take place on the other 
side of a wall, that fear of the hidden, the unknown 
danger that makes itself felt though invisible. How 
would the afternoon end? 

Behind the cuadrillas sounded the trotting of the horses 
that entered through the outer arcades of the plaza. 
They bore the constables with their long black cloaks 
and bell-shaped hats decorated with red and yellow 
feathers. They had just cleared the ring, emptying 
it of the curious, and they came to put themselves at the 
head of the cuadrillas, serving them as advance guards. 

The doors of the archway and those of the barrier wall 
opposite opened wide. The great ring appeared, the real 
plaza, the circular space of sand where the tragedy of 
the afternoon was to be enacted for the excitement and 
entertainment of fourteen thousand souls. The har- 
monious and confused buzzing increased, developing into 
gay and bizarre music, a triumphal march of sounding 
brass that caused arms to swing martially and hips to 
swagger. Forward, ye brave! 


[ 44 ] 


THE MATADOR AND THE LADY 


And the bull-fighters, winking at the violent transition, 
passed from the shadow to the light, from the silence of 
the quiet gallery to the roar of the ring on whose sur- 
rounding seats surged the crowd in waves of curiosity, 
rising to their feet to see to better advantage. 

The ioreros advanced, seeming suddenly to diminish in 
size in comparison to the length of the perspective as 
they trod the arena. They resembled brilliant little pup- 
pets, whose embroideries caught rainbow reflections 
from the sun. Their graceful movements fired the peo- 
ple with an enthusiasm like to that of the child in the 
presence of a wonderful toy. The mad gust that stirred 
the crowds, causing their nerves to tingle and their flesh 
to creep, they knew not why, moved the whole plaza. 

The people applauded, the more enthusiastic and ner- 
vous yelled, the music rumbled and, in the midst of this 
outburst which spread in every direction, from the door 
of the exit to the president’s box, the cuadrillas advanced 
with solemn pace, the graceful movements of arms and 
bodies compensating for the shortness of step. In the 
ring of blue ether overhanging above the plaza white 
doves were winging as if frightened by the roar that 
escaped from this crater of brick. 

The athletes felt themselves different men as they ad- 
vanced across the arena. They exposed their lives for 
something more than money. Their uncertainty and ter- 
ror in the presence of the unknown were left behind 
those barriers; now they were before the public; they 
faced reality. And the thirst for glory in their barbarous 
and simple souls, the desire to outstrip their comrades, 
their pride of strength and skill, blinded them, made 
them forget fear and filled them with a brutal courage. 


[ 45 | 





THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Gallardo had become transfigured. He walked erect, 
aspiring to be taller; he moved with the arrogance of a 
conqueror. He gazed in all directions with a triumphant 
air, as though his two companions did not exist. Every- 
thing was his; the plaza and the public. He felt himself 
capable of killing every bull that roamed the pastures 
of Andalusia and Castile. All the applause was for him, 
he was sure of it: The thousands of feminine eyes 
shaded by white mantillas in boxes and benches, dwelt 
only on his person. He had no doubt of it. The public 
adored him and, as he advanced, smiling flippantly, as 
though the entire ovation were directed to his person, 
he looked along the rows of seats on the rising tiers 
knowing where the greater number of his partisans were 
grouped and seeming to ignore those sections where 
his rivals’ friends were assembled. 

They saluted the president, cap in hand, and the bril- 
liant defile broke up, lackeys and horsemen scattering 
about the arena. Then, while a guard caught in his hat 
the key thrown by the president, Gallardo turned toward 
the rows of seats where sat his greatest admirers and 
handed them his glittering cape to keep for him. The 
handsome garment, grasped by many hands, was spread 
over the wall as though it were a banner, a sacred symbol 
of loyalty. 

The most enthusiastic partisans stood waving hands 
and canes, greeting the matador with shouts manifesting 
their expectations. “Let the boy from Seville show 
what he can do!” 

And he, leaning against the barrier, smiling, sure of his 
strength, answered, “ Many thanks. What can be done 
will be done.” 


[ 46 ] 


THE MATADOR AND THE LADY 


Not only were his admirers hopeful of him, but all the 
people fixed their attention upon him in a state of great 
excitement. He was a bull-fighter who seemed likely to 
meet with a catastrophe some day, and the sort of ca- 
tastrophe which called for a bed in the hospital. 

Every one believed he was destined to die in the plaza 
as the result of a horn-stab, and this very belief caused 
them to applaud him with homicidal enthusiasm, with 
barbaric interest like that of the misanthrope who fol- 
lows an animal tamer from place to place, expecting 
every moment to see him devoured by his wild beasts. 

Gallardo laughed at the old professors of tauromachy 
who consider a mishap impossible as long as the bull- 
fighter sticks to the rules of the art. Rules! He knew 
them not and did not trouble himself to learn them. 
Valor and audacity were all that were necessary to win. 
And, almost blindly, without other guide than his te- 
merity, or other support than that of his physical facul- 
ties, he had risen rapidly, astonishing the public into 
paroxysms, stupefying it with wonder by his mad daring. 

He had not climbed up, step by step, as had other 
matadores, serving long years first as pedn and banderillero 
at the side of the maestros. He had never known fear of 
a bull’s horns. “Hunger stabs worse.” He had risen 
suddenly and the public had seen him begin as espada, 
achieving immense popularity in a few years. 

They admired him for the reason that they held his 
misfortune a certainty. He fired the public with devilish 
enthusiasm for the blind way in which he defied Death. 
They gave him the same attention and care that they 
would give a criminal preparing for eternity. This bull- 
fighter was not one of those who held power in reserve; 


[ 47 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


he gave everything, his life included. It was worth the 
money it cost. And the multitude, with the bestiality of 
those who witness danger from a point of safety, admired 
and urged the hero on. The prudent made wry faces 
at his deeds; they thought him a predestined suicide, 
shielded by luck, and murmured, “ While he lasts!” 

Drums and trumpets sounded and the first bull en- 
tered. Gallardo, with his plain working-cape over one 
arm, remained near the barrier close to the ranks of his 
partisans, in disdainful immobility, believing that the 
whole plaza had their eyes glued on him. That bull was 
for some one else. He would show signs of existence 
when his arrived. But the applause for the skilful cape- 
work of his companions brought him out of his quiet, 
and in spite of his intention he went at the bull, achiev- 
ing several feats due more to audacity than to skill. The 
whole plaza applauded him, moved by predisposition in 
his favor because of his daring. 

When Fuentes killed the first bull and viilieed toward 
the president’s box, bowing to the multitude, Gallardo 
turned paler, as though all show of favor that was not 
for him was equivalent to ignominious oblivion. Now 
his turn was coming; great things were going to be seen. 
He did not know for a certainty what they might be but 
he was going to astound the public. 

Scarcely had the second bull appeared when Gallardo, 
by his activity and his desire to shine, seemed to fill the 
whole plaza. His cape was ever near the bull’s nose. A 
picador of his cuadrilla, the one called Potaje, was thrown 
from his horse and lay unprotected near the horns, but 
the maestro, grabbing the beast’s tail, pulled with hercu- 
lean strength and made him turn till the horseman was 
safe. The public applauded, wild with enthusiasm. 


[ 48 | 





THE MATADOR AND THE LADY 


When the time for placing the banderillas arrived, Gal- 
lardo stood between the inner and outer barrier awaiting 
the bugle signal to kill. Nacional, with the banderilla in 
his hand, attracted the bull to the centre of the plaza. 
No grace nor audacity was in his bearing; it was merely 
a question of earning bread. Away in Seville were 
four small children who, if he were to die, would not find 
another father. To fulfil his duty and nothing more; 
only to throw his banderillas like a journeyman of tauro- 
machy, without desire for ovations and merely well 
enough to avoid being hissed! 

When he had placed the first pair, some of the specta- 
tors in the vast circle applauded, and others bantered 
the banderillero in a waggish tone, alluding to his 
hobbies. 

“Less politics, and get closer!” 

And Nacional, deceived by the distance, on hearing 
these shouts answered smiling, like his master: 

“ Many thanks; many thanks.” 

When Gallardo leaped anew into the arena at the 
sound of the trumpets and drums which announced the 
last play, the multitude stirred with a buzzing of emo- 
tion. This matador was its own. Now they were going 
to see something great. 

He took the muleta from the hands of Garabato, who of- 
fered it folded as he came inside the walls; he grasped 
the sword which his servant also presented to him, and 
with short steps walked over and stood in front of the 
president’s box carrying his cap in his hand. All craned 
their necks, devouring the idol with their eyes, but no 
one heard his speech. The arrogant, slender figure, the 
body thrown back to give greater force to his words, pro- 
duced on the multitude the same effect as the most elo- 


[ 49 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


quent address. As he ended his peroration with a half 
turn, throwing his cap on the ground, enthusiasm broke 
out long and loud. Hurrah for the boy from Seville! 
Now they were to see the real thing! And the spectators 
looked at each other mutely, anticipating stupendous 
events. A tremor ran along the rows of seats as though 
they were in the presence of something sublime. 

The profound silence produced by great emotions fell 
suddenly upon the multitude as though the plaza had 
been emptied. The life of so many thousands of persons 
was condensed into their eyes. No one seemed to 
breathe. 

Gallardo advanced slowly toward the bull holding the 
muleta across his body like a banner, and waving his 
sword in his other hand with a pendulum-like movement 
that kept time with his step. 

Turning his head an instant he saw that Nacional 
with another member of his cuadrilla was following to 
assist him, his cape over his arm. 

“Stand aside, everybody!” 

A voice rang out in the silence of the plaza making it- 
self heard even to the farthest seats, and a burst of admi- 
ration answered it. “Stand aside, everybody!” He had 
said, “Stand aside, everybody!” What a man! 

He walked up to the beast absolutely alone, and in- 
stantly silence fell again. He calmly readjusted the red 
flag on the stick, extended it, and advanced thus a few 
steps until he almost touched the nose of the bull, which 
stood stupefied and terrified by the audacity of the man. 

The public dared not speak nor even breathe but ad- 
miration shone in their eyes. What ayouth! He walked 
in between the very horns! He stamped the ground im- 


[ 50 ] 


THE MATADOR AND THE LADY 


patiently with one foot, inciting the beast to attack, and 
that enormous mass of flesh, defended by sharp horns 
fell bellowing upon him. The muleta passed over his 
horns, which grazed the tassels and fringes of the dress 
of the bull-fighter standing firm in his place, with no 
other movement than a backward bending of his body. 
A shout from the crowd answered this whirl of the mu- 
leta. Hurrah! 

The infuriated beast returned; he re-attacked the man 
with the “rag,” who repeated the pass, with the same 
roar from the public. The bull, made more and more 
furious by the deception, attacked the athlete who con- 
tinued whirling the red flag within a short distance, 
fired by the proximity of danger and the wondering ex- 
clamations of the crowd that seemed to intoxicate him. 

Gallardo felt the animal snort upon him; the moist 
vapor from its muzzle wet his right hand and his face. 
Grown familiar by contact he looked upon the brute as 
a good friend who was going to let himself be killed to 
contribute to his glory. 

The bull stood motionless for some seconds as if tired 
of this play, gazing with hazy eyes at the man and at 
the red scarf, suspecting in his obscure mind the exist- 
ence of a trick which with attack after attack was draw- 
ing him toward death. 

Gallardo felt the presentiment of his happiest suc- 
cesses. Now! He rolled the flag with a circular move- 
ment of his left hand around the staff and he raised his 
right hand to the height of his eyes, standing with the 
sword pointing towards the neck of the beast. 

The crowd was stirred by a movement of protest and 
horror. 


[51] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


“Don’t strike yet,” shouted thousands of voices. 
“No, no!” 

It was too soon. The bull was not in good position; 
he would make a lunge and catch him. But Gallardo 
moved regardless of all rules of the art. What did either 
rules or life matter to that desperate man? 

Suddenly he threw himself forward with his sword 
held before him, at the same time that the wild beast fell 
upon him. It was a brutal, savage encounter. For an 
instant man and beast formed a single mass and thus 
moved together several paces, no one knowing which was 
the conqueror, the man with an arm and part of his body 
lying between the two horns, or the beast lowering his 
head and trying to seize with his defences the puppet of 
gold and colors which seemed to be slipping away from 
him. 

At last the group parted, the muleia lay on the ground 
like a rag, and the bull-fighter, his hands free, went stag- 
gering back from the impulse of the shock until he re- 
covered his equilibrium a few steps away. His cloth- 
ing was in disorder; his cravat floated outside his vest, 
gored and torn by one of the horns. 

The bull raced on impelled by the momentum of his 
start. Above his broad neck the red hilt of the sword 
embedded to the cross scarcely protruded. Suddenly the 
animal paused, shuddering with a painful movement of 
obeisance, doubled his fore legs, inclined his head till 
his bellowing muzzle touched the sand, and finished by 
lying down with shudders of agony. 

It seemed as if the very building would fall, as if the 
bricks dashed against one another, as if the multitude 
was about to fly panic-stricken, by the way it rose to 


[ 52] 


THE MATADOR AND THE LADY 


its feet, pale, tremulous, gesticulating and throwing its 
arms. Dead! What a stroke! Every one had believed 
for a second that the matador was caught on the horns. 
All had felt sure they would see him fall upon the sand 
stained with blood and, as they beheld him standing up 
still giddy from the shock but smiling, surprise and 
amazement augmented the enthusiasm. 

“ How fierce!” they shouted from the tiers of seats, 
not finding a more fitting word to express their aston- 
ishment — “ How rash!” 

Hats flew into the arena and a deafening roar of ap- 
plause, like a shower of hail, ran from row to row of 
seats as the matador advanced around the ring until he 
stood in front of the president’s box. 

The ovation burst out clamorously when Gallardo, ex- 
tending his arms, saluted the president. All shouted, de- 
manding for the swordsman the honors due to mastery. 
They must give him the ear. Never was this distinction 
so merited; few sword-thrusts like that had ever been 
seen; and the enthusiasm increased when a mozo of the 
plaza handed him a dark triangle, hairy and blood-stained 
—the point of one of the beast’s ears. 

The third bull was now in the ring, but the ovation to 
Gallardo continued as though the public had not yet re- 
covered from its amazement; as though all that might 
occur during the rest of the bull-fight would be tame in 
comparison. 

The other bull-fighters, pale with professional envy, 
strove valiantly to attract the attention of the public. 
Applause was given, but it was weak and faint after 
the former ovations. The public was exhausted by the 
delirium of its enthusiasm and heeded absent-mindedly 


[53] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


the events that took place in the ring. Fiery discus- 
sions broke out and ran from tier to tier. The adher- 
ents of other bull-fighters, serene and unmoved by 
the transports that had overcome the people, took ad- 
vantage of the spontaneous movement, to turn the dis- 
cussion upon Gallardo. Very valiant, very daring, a 
suicide, they said, but that was not art. And the vehe- 
ment adherents of the idol, proud of his audacity and 
carried away by their own feelings, became indignant 
like the believer who sees the miracles of his favorite 
saint held in doubt. 

The attention of the public was diverted by incidents 
that disturbed the people on some of the tiers of 
seats. Suddenly those in one section moved; the spec- 
tators rose to their feet, turning their backs to the ring; 
arms and canes whirled above their heads. The rest of 
the crowd ceased looking at the arena, directing their at- 
tention to the seat of trouble and to the large numbers, 
painted on the inner wall, that marked the different sec- 
tions of the amphitheatre. 

“Fight in the third!” they yelled joyfully. “Now 
there ’s a row in the fifth!” 

Following the contagious impulse of the crowd, all 
became excited and rose to their feet to see over their 
neighbors’ heads but were unable to distinguish any- 
thing except the slow ascent of the police who, opening 
a passage from step to step, reached the group where 
the dispute had begun. 

“Sit down!” exclaimed the more prudent, deprived of 
their view of the ring where the bull-fighters continued 
the game. 

Little by little the waves of the multitude calmed, the 


[ 54 ] 


THE MATADOR AND THE LADY 


rows of heads assumed their former regularity on the 
circular lines of the benches, and the bull-fight went on. 
But the nerves of the audience were shaken and their 
state of mind manifested itself in unjust animosity to- 
ward certain fighters or by profound silence. 

The public, exhausted by the recent intense emotion, 
found all the events tame. They sought to allay their 
ennui by eating and drinking. The venders in the plaza 
went about between barreras, throwing with marvellous 
skill the articles bought. Oranges flew like red balls to 
the highest row, going from the hand of the seller to 
those of the buyer in a straight line, as if pulled by a 
thread. Bottles of carbonated drinks were uncorked. 
The liquid gold of Andalusian wines shone in little 
glasses. 

A movement of curiosity circulated along the benches. 
Fuentes was about to fix the banderillas in his bull and 
every one expected some extraordinary show of skill and 
grace. He advanced alone to the centre of the plaza with 
the banderillas in one hand, serene, tranquil, walking 
slowly, as though he were to begin a game. The bull fol- 
lowed his movements with curious eyes, amazed to see 
the man alone before him after the former hurly-burly 
of fluttering and extended capes, of cruel barbs thrust 
into his neck, of horses that came and stood within reach 
of his horns, as if offering themselves to his attack. 

The man hypnotized the beast. He drew near until 
he could touch his poll with the point of the bandcrillas, 
then he ran slowly away, with short steps, the bull after 
him, as though persuaded into obedience and drawn 
against his will to the extreme opposite side of the plaza. 
The animal seemed to be mastered by the bull-fighter ; 


[ 55 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


he obeyed him in all his movements until the man, call- 
ing the game ended, extended his arms with a banderilla 
in each hand, raised his small, slender body upon his 
toes, advanced toward the bull with majestic ease, and 
thrust the gayly colored darts into its neck. 

Three times he performed the same feat, applauded by 
the public. Those who considered themselves connois- 
seurs retaliated now for the explosion of enthusiasm pro- 
voked by Gallardo. This was a bull-fighter! This was 
pure art. 

Gallardo, standing near the barrier, wiped the sweat 
off his face with a towel which Garabato handed him. 
Then he turned his back on the ring to avoid seeing the 
prowess of his companion. Outside of the plaza he es- 
teemed his rivals with that feeling of fraternity estab- 
lished by danger; but as soon as they stepped into the 
arena all were enemies and their triumphs pained him 
as if they were offences. Now the enthusiasm of the 
public seemed to him a robbery that diminished his own 
great triumph. 

When the fifth bull came out, it was for hae and he 

sprang into the arena anxious to again startle the public 
by his daring. 
“ When a picador fell he threw his cape and enticed the 
bull to the other side of the ring, confusing him with a 
series of movements until the beast became stupefied and 
stood motionless. Then Gallardo touched his nose with 
one foot, and took his cap and put it between the 
horns. Again, he took advantage of the animal’s stup- 
efaction and thrust his body forward as an audacious 
challenge, and knelt at a short distance, all but lying 
down under the brute’s nose. 


[ 56 } 


THE MATADOR AND THE LADY 


The old aficionados protested loudly. Monkey-shines! 
Clown-tricks, that would not have been tolerated in olden 
days! But they had to subside, wearied by the tumult 
of the public. 

When the signal for the banderillas was given the peo- 
ple were thrown into suspense by seeing that Gallardo 
took the darts from Nacional and walked towards the 
beast with them. There was an exclamation of protest. - 
He to throw the banderillas! All knew his inexperience in 
that direction. This ought to be left to those who had 
risen in their career step by step, for those who had 
been banderilleros many years at the side of their maestros 
before becoming bull-fighters; and Gallardo had begun 
at the top, killing bulls ever since he stepped into the 
. plaza. 

“No! No!” clamored the multitude. 

Doctor Ruiz shouted and gesticulated from the contra- 
barrera. 

“Leave off that, boy! Thou knowest but the great 
act —to kill!” 

But Gallardo scorned the public and was deaf to its 
protests when he felt the impulse of audacity. Amidst 
the outcries he went directly towards the bull, which 
never moved and, zas! he stuck in the banderillas. The 
pair lodged out of place, and only skin deep, and one of 
the sticks fell at the beast’s movement of surprise. But 
this mattered not. With that lenity the multitude ever 
feels for its idols, excusing and justifying their defects, 
the entire public commended this piece of daring by 
smiling. He, growing more rash, took other banderillas 
and lodged them, heedless of the protests of the people 
who feared for his life. Then he repeated the act a third 


[57] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


time, each time doing it crudely but with such fearless- 
ness that what in another would have provoked hisses 
was received with great explosions of admiration. What 
aman! How luck aided this daring youth! 

The bull stood with only four of the banderillas in his 
neck, and those so lightly embedded that he did not seem 
to feel them. 

“He is perfectly sound,” yelled the devotees on the 
rows of seats, alluding to the bull, while Gallardo, grasp- 
ing sword and muleta, marched up to him, with his cap 
on, arrogant and calm, trusting in his lucky star. 

“ Aside, all!” he shouted again. 

Divining that some one was near him giving no heed 
to his orders he turned his head. Fuentes was a few 
steps away. He had followed him, his cape over his 
_arm, feigning inattention but ready to come to his aid 
as though he felt a premonition of an accident. 

“Leave me alone, Antonio,” said Gallardo, with an ex- 
pression that was at once angry and respectful, as though 
he were talking to an elder brother, at which Fuentes 
shrugged his shoulders as if he thus threw off all re- 
sponsibility, and turned his back and walked away 
slowly, but feeling certain of being needed at any mo- 
ment. 

Gallardo waved his flag in the beast’s very face and 
the latter attacked. “A pass! Hurrah!” the enthusi- 
asts roared. But the animal suddenly returned, falling 
upon the matador again and giving him such a violent 
blow with his head that the muleta was knocked from 
his hands. Finding himself unarmed and hard-pressed 
he had to make for the barrera, but at the same instant 
Fuentes’ cape distracted the animal. Gallardo, who di- 


[ 58 | 


THE MATADOR AND THE LADY 


vined during his flight the beast’s sudden halt, did not 
jump over the barrera; he sat on the vaulting wall an in- 
stant, contemplating his enemy a few paces away. The 
rout ended in applause for this show of serenity. 

Gallardo recovered the muleta and sword, carefully ar- 
ranged the red flag, and again stood in front of the beast’s 
head, less calmly, but dominated instead by a murderous 
fury, by a desire to kill instantly the animal that had 
made him run in sight of thousands of admirers. 

He had scarcely made a pass with the flag when he 
thought the decisive moment had arrived and he squared 
himself, the muleta held low, the hilt of the sword raised 
close to his eyes. 

The public protested again, fearing for his life. 

“He’ll throw thee! No! Aaay!” 

It was an exclamation of horror that moved the whole 
plaza; a spasm that caused the multitude to rise to its 
feet with eyes staring while the women covered their 
faces or grasped the nearest arm in terror. 

At the bull-fighter’s thrust the sword struck bone, and, 
delayed in the movement of stepping aside on account 
of this difficulty, Gallardo had been caught by one of the 
horns and now hung upon it by the middle of his body. 
The brave youth, so strong and wiry, found himself 
tossed about on the end of the horn like a miserable 
manikin until the powerful beast, with a shake of his 
head, flung him some yards away, where he fell heavily 
on the sand with arms and legs extended, ie a frog 
dressed in silk and gold. 

“He is killed! A horn-stab in the belly!” They 
shouted from the rows of seats. 

But Gallardo got up amidst the capes and the men who 


[ 59 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


rushed to cover and save him. He smiled; he tested his 
bedy; then he raised his shoulders to indicate to the pub- 
lic that it was nothing. A jar—no more, and the belt 
torn to shreds. The horn had only penetrated the wrap- 
ping of strong silk. is 

Again he grasped the instruments of death, but now 
nobody would remain seated, divining that the encounter 
would be short and terrible. Gallardo marched towards 
the beast with a blind impulse determined to kill or die 
immediately, without delay or precaution. The bull or 
he! He saw red, as if blood had been injected into his 
eyes. He heard, as something distant that came from 
another world, the outcry of the multitude counselling 
calmness. 

He made only two passes, aided by a cape that he held 
at his side, then suddenly, with the swiftness of a dream, 
like a spring that is loosed from its fastening, he threw 
himself upon the bull, giving him a stab that his ad- 
mirers said was swift as a lightning stroke. He thrust 
his arm so far over that on escaping from between the 
horns he received a blow from one of them which 
sent him staggering away; but he kept on his feet, and 
the beast, after a mad run, fell at the extreme opposite 
side of the plaza and lay with his legs bent under him 
and the top of his head touching the sand until the pun- 
tillero came to finish him. The public seemed to go mad 
with enthusiasm. A glorious bull-fight! It was sur- 
feited with excitement. That fellow Gallardo did not 
rob one of his money; he responded with excess to the 
price of entrance. The devotees would have material to 
talk about for three days at their meetings at the café. 
How brave! how fierce! And the most enthusiastic, with 


[60] 





THE MATADOR AND THE LADY 


warlike fervor, looked in every direction as if searching 
for enemies. 

“ The greatest matador in the world! And here am I to 
face whoever dare say to the contrary!” 

The remainder of the bull-fight scarcely claimed at- 
tention. It all seemed tasteless and colorless after Gal- 
lardo’s daring. 

When the last bull fell upon the sand a surging crowd 
of boys, of popular devotees, of apprentices of the art of 
bull-fighting, invaded the ring. They surrounded Gal- 
lardo, following him on his way from the president’s box 
to the door of exit. They crowded against him, all wish- 
ing to press his hand or touch his dress; and at last, the 
most vehement, paying no attention to the gesticulations 
of Nacional and the other banderilleros, caught the master 
by the legs and raised him to their shoulders, carrying 
him around the ring and through the galleries to the 
outer edge of the plaza. 

Gallardo, taking off his cap, bowed to the groups that 
applauded his triumph. Wrapped in his glittering cape, 
he allowed himself to be carried like a divinity, motion- 
less and erect above the current of Cordovan hats and 
Madrid caps, amidst acclamations of enthusiasm. 

As he stepped into his carriage at the lower end of 
Alcala Street, hailed by the crowd that had not seen the 
bull-fight, but which already knew of his triumphs, a 
smile of pride, of satisfaction in his own strength, illum- 
inated his sweaty countenance over which the pallor of 
emotion still spread. 

Nacional, anxious about the master’s having been 
caught and about his violent fall, wished to know if he 
felt any pain, and if he should call Doctor Ruiz. 


[ 6x | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


“It’s nothing; a petting, nothing more. No bull alive 
can kill me.” 

But as though in the midst of his pride arose the rec- 
ollection of his past weaknesses, and as though he 
thought he saw in Nacional’s eyes an ironic. expression, 
he added: 

“ Those are things that affect me before going to the 
plaza; something like hysteria in women. But thou 
art right, Sebastian. How sayest thou? God or Nature, 
that’s it; neither God nor Nature should meddle in af- 
fairs of bull-fghting. Every one gets through as he can, 
by his skill or by his courage, and recommendations from 
earth or from heaven are of no use to him. Thou hast 
talent, Sebastian; thou shouldst have studied for a 
career.” 

In the optimism of his joy he looked upon the ban- 
derillero as a sage, forgetting the jests with which he had 
always received the latter’s topsy-turvy reasoning. 

When he reached his lodging he found many admirers 
in the vestibule anxious to embrace him. They talked 
of his deeds with such hyperbole that they seemed al- 
tered, exaggerated, and transfigured by the comments 
made in the short distance from the plaza to the hotel. 

Upstairs his room was full of friends, gentlemen who 
thoued him, and, imitating the rustic speech of the country 
people, shepherds and cattle-breeders, said to him, slap- 
ping his shoulders: 

“Thou hast done very well; but really, very well!” 

Gallardo freed himself from this enthusiastic recep- 
tion and went out into the corridor with Garabato. 

“Go and send a telegram home. Thou knowest what 
to say: ‘As usual.’” 


[ 62 ] 


nH — 


THE MATADOR AND THE LADY 


Garabato protested. He must help the maestro un- 
dress. The servants of the hotel would take charge of 
sending the despatch. 

“No, I wish it to be thou. I will wait. Thou must 
send another telegram. Thou already knowest who to 
— to that lady; to Dofia Sol. Also ‘ As usual.’” 


{ 63 ] 


CHAPTER III 


BORN FOR THE BULL-RING 


HEN Sefiora Angustias was bereft of her hus- 

band, Sefior Juan Gallardo, the well known cob- 

bler established in a portal in the ward of the Feria, she 

wept with the disconsolateness due the event, but at the 

same time, in the depths of her soul, she felt the satisfac- 

tion of one who rests after a long journey, freed from an 
overwhelming burden. 

“Poor fellow, joy of my heart! May God keep him in 
His glory. So good! So industrious!” 

During twenty years of life together, he had not caused 
her greater sorrows than those the rest of the women of 
the ward had to bear. Of the three pesetas he averaged 
as a result of his labor he handed over one to Sefiora 
Angustias for the support of the house and family, using 
the other two for personal entertainment and for keeping 
up appearances among his friends. He was obliged to 
respond to the attentions of his companions when they 
invited him to a convivial glass, and the famous Andalu- 
sian wine, since it is the glory of God, costs dear. Also 
it was inevitable that he should go to see the bulls, be- 
cause a man who does not drink nor attend bull-fights — 
why is he in the world? 

Sefiora Angustias with her two children, Encarnacién 
and little Juan, had to sharpen her wits and develop nu- 
merous talents in order to keep the family together. 


[ 64 | 


ye Ow 


ii ith ih alin eal 


~ 


BORN FOR THE BULL-RING 


She worked as a servant in the houses nearest her ward, 
sewed for the women of the neighborhood, sold clothing 
and trinkets for a certain brokeress, a friend of hers, and 
made cigarettes for the gentlemen, recalling her youth- 
ful aptitude when Sefior Juan, an enthusiastic and fav- 
ored lover, used to come and wait for her at the door of 
the Tobacco Factory. 

Never could she complain of infidelity or ill-treatment 
on the part of her husband. On Saturdays when the 
cobbler used to come home drunk in the late hours of 
the night supported by his friends, joy and tenderness 
came with him. Sefiora Angustias had to drag him into 
the house, for he was determined to remain outside the 
door clapping his hands and intoning, with slobbery 
voice, tender love songs dedicated to his corpulent com- 
panion. And when the door was at last closed behind 
him, depriving the neighbors of a source of entertain- 
ment, Sefior Juan, in a state of sentimental drunkenness, 
insisted on seeing the sleeping children; he kissed them, 
wetting their little faces with great tear-drops, and re- 
peated his verses in honor of Sefiora Angustias (Hur- 
rah! the greatest woman in the world!) till finally the 
good wife was compelled to cease frowning and to laugh 
while she undressed him and managed him as if he were 
a sick child. 

This was his only vice. Poor fellow! There was not 
a sign of women or of gambling. His self-esteem which 
made him go well dressed while the family went in rags, 
and his unequal division of the products of his labor, 
were both compensated by generous incentives. Sefiora 
Angustias recollected with pride the great feast days 
when Juan had her put on her Manila shawl, her wed- 


[ 65 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


ding maniilla, and, with the children walking in advance, 
he strode at her side with white Cordovan hat and silver 
handled cane, taking a walk along Delicias with the same 
air as any shopkeeper’s family from Sierpes Street. On 
cheap bull-fight days he courted her pompously before 
going to the plaza, offering her glasses of wine at La 
Campana or at a café in the New Plaza. This happy 
time was now but a faint and pleasant memory in the 
recollection of the poor woman. 

Sefior Juan fell ill of phthisis and for two years the 
wife had to care for him, making still greater exertions in 
her industries to compensate for the lack of the peseta her 
husband used to turn over to her. At last he died in 
the hospital, resigned to his fate, convinced that exist- 
ence was of no value without Andalusian wine and with- 
out bulls, and his last look of love and gratitude was for 
his wife, as if he would call out with his eyes: “ Hur- - 
rah! the greatest woman in the world!” 

When Sefiora Angustias was left alone her position 
did not change for the worse,— rather for the better. She 
enjoyed greater liberty in her movements, freed from the 
man who for the last two years had weighed more 
heavily upon her than the rest of the family. Being an 
energetic woman and of prompt decision, she imme- 
diately marked out a career for her children. Encarna- 
cién, who was now sixteen, went to the Tobacco Factory, | 
where her mother was able to introduce her, thanks to 
her relations with certain friends of her youth who had 
become overseers. Juanillo, who as a lad had passed his 
days in the porial of the Feria watching his father work, 
should be a shoemaker, according to the will of Sefiora 
Angustias. She took him out of school, where he had 


[ 66 ] 


BORN FOR THE BULL-RING 


learned to read but poorly, and at twelve he became an 
apprentice to one of the best shoemakers in Seville. 

And now the martyrdom of the poor woman began. 

Ah, that boy! Son of such honorable parents! Almost 
every day, instead of going to his master’s shop he went 
to the slaughter-house with certain rascals who had their 
meeting place on a bench in the Alameda of Hercules and 
who delighted to flaunt a cape under the nose of young 
bullocks for the entertainment of herders and butchers, 
generally getting upset and trampled upon. Sefiora 
Angustias, who often toiled far into the night, needle in 
hand, so that the boy might go to the shop neat, with 
his clothing clean and mended, met him at the door when 
he came home with his pantaloons torn, his jacket 
dirty, and his face covered with lumps and scratches, 
afraid to enter yet without courage to flee owing to his 
hunger. 

The welts made by his mother’s blows and the marks 
of the broom-handle were added to the bruises of the 
treacherous bullocks, but the hero of the slaughter-house 
suffered them all, provided he did not lack his daily 
rations. “ Beat me, but give me something to eat.” And 
with his appetite awakened by violent exercise, he de- 
voured the hard bread, the spoiled beans, the stale cod- 
fish, all the cheap food the diligent woman sought in the 
shops in the effort to maintain the family on her scanty 
earnings. 

Toiling all day scrubbing floors, only now and then 
did she have an‘ afternoon in which she could concern 
herself with her son’s welfare and go to the cobbler’s to 
learn of the progress of the apprentice. When she re- 
turned from the shoemaker’s shop she was puffing and 


[ 67 | 


ns 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


blowing with anger and resolved upon’ terrible punish- 
ments to correct the vagabond. 

Most of the time he failed to present himself at the 
shop at all. He spent the morning at the slaughter-house 
and in the afternoons he formed one of the group of vaga- 
bonds collected at the entrance of Sierpes Street, 
admiring at close range the bull-fighters out of work who 
gathered in Campana Street, dressed in new clothes, with 
resplendent hats but with no more than a peseta in their 
pockets, though each one was bragging of his exploits. 

Little Juan contemplated them as if they were beings 
of marvellous superiority, envying their fine carriage and 
the boldness with which they flattered the women. The 
idea that each of these had at home a suit of silk em- 
broidered with gold, and that with it on he strode before 
the multitude to the sound of music, produced a thrill 
of respect. 

The son of Sefiora Angustias was known as the Little 
Cobbler among his ragged friends, and he showed satis- 
faction at having a nickname, as have nearly all the great 
men who appear in the ring. A foundation must be laid 
somewhere. He wore around his neck a red handker- 
chief which he had pilfered from his sister, and from be- 
neath his cap his hair fell over his ears in thick locks 
which he carefully plastered down. He wore his plaited 
blouses of drill tucked into his trousers, which were an- 
cient relics of his father’s wardrobe made over by Sefiora 
Angustias; he insisted these must be high in the waist 
with the legs wide and the hips well tightened, and wept 
with humiliation when his mother would not yield to 
these exactions. 

A cape! If only he might possess a fighting cape and 


| 68 | 


0 


BORN FOR THE BULL-RING 


not have to beg from other more fortunate boys the 
~ loan of the coveted “rag” for a few minutes! Ina poor 
little room at home lay an old forgotten empty mat- 
tress case. Sefiora Angustias had sold the wool in days 
of stress. The Little Cobbler spent a morning locked in 
the room, taking advantage of the absence of his mother 
who was working as a servant in a priest’s house. 

With the ingenuity of a shipwrecked mariner on a 
desert isle who, thrown upon his own resources, must 
construct everything necessary to his existence, he cut 
a fighting cape from the damp and half-frayed cloth. 
Then he boiled in a pot a handful of red aniline bought 
at a druggist’s, and dipped the ancient cotton in this dye. 
Little Juan admired his work —a cape of the most vivid 
scarlet that would arouse the greatest envy at the bull- 
baiting in the surrounding towns! Nothing remained 
but to dry it and he hung it in the sun beside the neigh- 
bor women’s white clothes. The wind blew the dripping 
cloth about, bespattering the nearest pieces, until a 
chorus of curses and threats, clenched fists, and mouths 
that pronounced the ugliest of words against him and 
his mother, obliged the Little Cobbler to grasp his man- 
tle of glory and take to his heels, his hands and face dyed 
red as though he had just committed a murder. 

Sefiora Angustias, a strong, corpulent, be-whiskered 
woman who was not afraid of men, and inspired the re- 
spect of women for her energetic resolutions, was dis- 
heartened and weak in the presence of her son. What 
could she do? Her hands had pummelled every part of 
the boy’s body; brooms were broken on him without ben- 
eficial results. That little imp had, according to her, the 
flesh of a dog. Accustomed outside of the house to the 


[ 69 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


tremendous butting of the steers, to the cruel trampling 
of the cows, to the clubs of herders and butchers who 
beat the band of vagabond bull-fighters without compas- 
sion, his mother’s blows seemed to him a natural event, 
a continuation of his life outside prolonged inside the 
home, and he accepted them without the least intention 
of mending his ways, as a fee which he must pay in ex- 
change for his sustenance, chewing the hard bread with 
hungry enjoyment, while the maternal maledictions and 
blows rained on his back. 

Scarcely was his hunger appeased when he fled from 
the house, taking advantage of the freedom in which 
Sefiora Angustias left him when she absented herself on 
her round of duties. 

In Campana Street, that venerable haunt of the bull- 
fighters where the gossip of the great doings of the pro- 
fession circulated, he received information about his 
companions that gave him tremors of enthusiasm. 

“ Little Cobbler, a bull-fight to-morrow.” 

The towns in the province celebrated the feasts of 
their patron saints with cape-teasing of bulls which had 
been rejected from the great plazas, and to these the 
young bull-fighters went in the hope of being able to 
say on their return that they had held the cape in the 
glorious plazas of Aznalcollar, Bollullos, or Mairena. 
' They started on the journey at night with the cape 
over the shoulder if it were summer, or wrapped in it if 
winter, their stomachs empty, their heads full of visions 
of bulls and glory. 

If the trip were of several days’ journey they camped 
in the open, or they were admitted through charity to 
the hayloft of an inn. Alas for the grapes, melons, and 


. [70] 


BORN FOR THE BULL-RING 


figs they found by the way in those happy times! Their 
only fear was that another band, another cuadrilla, pos- 
sessed of the same idea, would present itself in the 
pueblo and set up an opposition. 

When they reached the end of their journey, with 
their eyebrows and mouths full of dust, tired and foot- 
sore from the march, they presented themselves to the 
alcalde and the boldest among them who performed the 
functions of director talked of the merits of his men. 
All considered themselves happy if the municipal gener- 
osity sheltered them in a stable of the hostelry and re- 
galed them with a pot of stew in addition, which they 
would clean up instantly. In the village plaza enclosed 
by wagons and boards, they let loose aged bulls, regular 
forts of flesh covered with scabs and scars, with enor- 
mous saw-edged horns; cattle which had been fought 
many years in all the feasts of the province; venerable 
animals that “understood the game,” such was their 
malice. Accustomed to one continual bull-fight they 
were in the secret of the tricks of the contest. 

The youths of the pueblo pricked on the beasts from 
their place of safety and the people longed for an object 
of diversion greater than the bull—#in the bull-fighters 
from Seville. These waved their capes, their legs tremb- 
ling, their courage borne down by the weight of their 
stomachs. A tumble, and then great clamor from the 
public! When one in sudden terror took refuge behind 
the palisades, rural barbarity received him with insults, 
beating the hands clutching at the wood, pounding him 
on the legs to make him jump back into the ring. “Get 
back there, poltroon! Fraud, to turn your face from the 
bull.” 


[71] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


At times one of the young swordsmen was borne out 
of the ring by four companions, pale as a sheet of white 
paper, his eyes glassy, his head fallen, his breast like a 
broken bellows. The veterinary came, quieting them all 
on seeing no blood. The boy was suffering from the 
shock of being thrown some yards and falling on the 
ground like a rag torn from a piece of clothing. Again 
it was the agony of having been stepped on by a beast 
of enormous weight. A bucket of water was thrown on 
his head and then, when he recovered his senses, they 
treated him to a long drink of brandy. A prince could 
not be better cared for! 

To the ring again! And when the herder had no more 
bulls to let out and night was drawing near, two of the 
cuadrilla grasped the best cape belonging to the society 
and holding it by its edges went from one viewing stand 
to another soliciting a contribution. Copper coins fell 
upon the red cloth in proportion to the pleasure the 
strangers had given the country people; and, the bull- 
_ baiting ended, they started on their return to the city, 
knowing that they had exhausted their credit at the inn. 
Often they fought on the way over the distribution of the 
pieces of copper which they carried in a knotted hand- 
kerchief. Then the rest of the week, they recounted their 
deeds before the fascinated eyes of their companions who 
had not been members of the expedition. 

Once Sefiora Angustias spent an entire week without 
hearing from her son. At last she heard vague rumors 
of his having been wounded in a bull-scrimmage in the 
town of Tocina. Dios mio! Where might that town be? 
How reach it? She gave up her son for dead, she wept 
for him, she longed to go; and then as she was getting 


[ 72 ] 





BORN FOR THE BULL-RING 


ready to start on her journey, she saw little Juan coming 
home, pale, weak, but talking with manly joy of his 
accident. 

It was nothing —a horn-stab in one thigh; a wound 
a fraction of an inch deep. And in the shamelessness of 
triumph he wanted to show it to the neighbors, affirm- 
ing that a finger could be thrust into it without reaching 
its end. He was proud of the stench of iodoform that 
he shed as he walked, and he talked of the attention they 
had shown him in that town, which he considered the 
finest in Spain. The wealthiest citizens, one might say 
the aristocracy, interested themselves in his case, the 
alcalde had been to see him and later paid his way home. 
He still had three duros in his pocket, which he handed 
to his mother with the generosity of a great man. So 
much glory at fourteen! His satisfaction was yet greater 
when some genuine bull-fighters in Campana Street fixed 
their attention on the boy and asked him how his wound 
was getting along. . 

His companion in poverty was Chiripa, a boy of the 
same age, with a small body and malicious eyes, without 
father or mother, who had tramped about Seville ever 
since he had attained the use of his faculties. Chiripa 
was a master of the roving life and had travelled over the 
world. The two boys started on a journey empty of 
pocket, without other equipment than their capes, mis- 
erable cast-offs acquired for a few reales from a second- 
hand clothing store. 

They clambered cautiously into trains and hid under 
seats. Often they were surprised by a trainman and, 
to the accompaniment of kicks and blows, were left by 
him on the platform of some solitary station while the 


[ 73 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


train vanished like a lost hope. They awaited the arrival 
of another, spending the night in the open, employing the 
cunning of primitive man to satisfy their necessities, 
crawling round about country houses to steal some soli- 
tary chicken, which, after wringing the fowl’s neck, 
they would broil over a fire of dry wood and devour 
scorched and half raw, with the voracity of young 
savages. 

Often when they slept in the open air near a station 
awaiting the passing of a train, a couple of guards would 
come up tothem. On seeing the red bundles that served 
as pillows for these vagabonds, their suspicions were 
quieted. They gently removed the boys’ caps, and on 
finding the hairy appendage they went away laughing 
without further investigation. These were not young 
thieves; they were apprentices who were going to the 
capeas. And in this tolerance there was a mixture of 
sympathy for the national sport and of respect for the 
obscure possibilities of the future. Who could tell if one 
of these ragged youths, despite his present appearance 
of poverty, might not in the future be a “ star of the art,” 
a great man who would kill bulls for the entertainment 
of kings, and live like a prince, and whose deeds and say- 
ings would be exploited in the newspapers? 

One afternoon, the Little Cobbler was left alone in a 
town of Extremadura. For the admiration of the rustic 
audience which applauded the famous bull-fighters “ come 
purposely from Seville,” the two boys threw banderillas 
at a fierce and ancient bull. Little Juan stuck his pair 
into the beast and was posing near a view-stand, proudly 
receiving the popular ovation of tremendous hand-clap- 
pings and proffers of cups of wine, when an exclamation 


[ 74] 


BORN FOR THE BULL-RING 


of horror sobered him in his intoxication of glory. Chi- 
ripa was no longer on the ground of the plaza; only the 
banderillas rolling in the dust, one slipper and a cap were 
there. The bull was moving about as if irritated by 
some obstacle, carrying hooked on one of his horns a 
bundle of clothing resembling a puppet. With the vio- 
lent tossing of his head the shapeless roll was loosened 
from the horn, ejecting a red stream, but before touch- 
ing the ground it was caught by the opposite horn which 
in its turn tossed it about during what seemed an inter- 
minable time. At last, the sorry bulk fell to the dust and 
there it stayed, flabby and inert, like a punctured wine- 
skin expelling its contents. 

The herder with his leaders took the bull into the cor- 
ral, for no one else dared go near him, and poor Chiripa 
was carried upon a stretcher to a wretched little room 
in the town-house that served as a jail. His companion 
looked at him with a face as white as if made of plaster. 
Chiripa’s eyes were glazed and his body was red with 
the blood which could not be stopped by the cloths wet 
with water and vinegar, which were applied in lieu of 
anything better. 

“ Adio’, Little Cobbler!” he moaned. “ Adio’, Juan- 
ito!” 

And he said no more. The companion of the dead 
youth, terrified, started on his return to Seville still see- 
ing his glassy eyes, hearing his mournful good-bye. He 
was filled with fear. A gentle cow appearing in his path 
would have made him run. He thought of his mother 
and of the prudence of her counsel. Would it not be 
better to dedicate himself to shoemaking and live tran- 
quilly? But these resolutions only lasted while he was 


[75] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


alone. When he reached Seville he felt the return of ex- 
hilaration. Friends rushed to him to hear about the death 
of poor Chiripa in every detail. Professional bull-fight- 
ers questioned him in Campana Street, remembering 
with pity the little vagabond with the pock-marked face 
who had often run errands for them. Juan, fired by such 
signs of consideration, gave rein to his powerful imagi- 
nation, describing how he had thrown himself upon the 
bull when he had seen his poor companion hooked, how 
he had grabbed the beast by the tail and achieved even 
more wonderful feats, in spite of which the other boy had 
left this world. 

The impulse of fear vanished. Bull-fghter — nothing 
but a bull-fghter! Since others were, why should he 
-not be one? He recollected his mother’s spoiled beans 
and hard bread; the deprivation each pair of new panta- 
loons had cost him; the hunger, that inseparable compan- 
ion of many of his expeditions. Moreover he had a vehe- 
ment desire for all the joys and displays of life; he gazed 
with envy at the coaches and the horses; he stood trans- 
fixed before the doors of the great houses through whose 
iron grilles he saw courtyards of Oriental sumptuousness 
and arcades of colored tiles, pavements with marble and 
chattering fountains casting a stream of pearls day and 
night into a basin surrounded by foliage. His fate was 
sealed. To kill bulls or die! To be rich, to have the 
newspapers talk of him, and to have the people bow to 
him, even though it were at the price of his life. He de- 
spised the lower grades of the art. He saw the banderil- 
leros expose their lives equally with the swordsmen in ex- 
change for thirty duros for each bull-fight; and, after a 
round of toil and horn-stabs, become old, with no other 


[ 76 ] 


BORN FOR THE BULL-RING 


future than some wretched business bought with paltry 
savings, or else a position at the slaughter-house. Some 
died in the hospital; others begged alms from their 
youthful companions. He would have nothing to do 
with banderilleros nor with spending long years in a cuad- 
rilla in submission to the despotism of a maesiro. He 
would begin with killing bulls; he would tread the sand 
of the plazas as a swordsman! 

The misfortune of poor Chiripa gave him a certain 
ascendency over his companions, and he formed a cuad- 
rilla of ragged youths who marched behind him to the 
capeas of the pueblos. They respected him because he was 
braver and better dressed. Some young girls of the 
street, attracted by the manly beauty of the Little Cob- 
bler, who was now in his eighteenth year, and predis- 
posed by his coleta, disputed in noisy competition the 
honor of taking care of his comely person. Moreover he 
counted on a patron, an old magistrate who had a weak- 
ness for the courage of young bull-fighters and whose 
friendship infuriated Sefiora Angustias and caused her 
to let loose some most indecent expressions which she 
had learned at the Tobacco Factory in her younger days. 

The Little Cobbler dressed himself in suits of English 
cloth well fitted to the elegance of his figure,.and his hat 
was always resplendent. His friends took scrupulous 
care of the whiteness of his collars and furbelows, and on 
certain days he proudly wore on his waistcoat a heavy 
gold chain, a loan from his respectable friend, that had 
already figured around the necks of other “boys who 
were starting out.” 

He mingled with broken-down bull-fighters; he could 
pay for the drinks of the old peones who recalled the deeds 


he yeaa 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


of famous swordsmen. It was believed for a certainty 
that some protectors were exerting themselves in favor 
of this “ boy,” awaiting a propitious occasion for him to 
make his début in a fight of young bullocks in the plaza 
of Seville. 

The Little Cobbler was now a matador. One day, at 
Lebrija, when a lively little young bull came into the 
plaza, his companions had urged him on to the greatest 
luck. “ Dost thou dare to kill him?” And he killed 
him! Henceforward, fired by the ease with which he 
had escaped danger, he went to all the capeas in which 
they announced that a bull was to be killed, and to all the 
granges where bulls were to be fought to the death. 

The proprietor of La Rinconada, a rich farmer with a 
small bull-ring, was an enthusiast who kept his table set 
and his hayloft open for all the hungry who wished to 
divert him by fighting his cattle. Juan went there in days 
of poverty with other companions, to eat and drink to the 
health of the rural hidalgo, although it might be at the 
price of some rough tumbling. They arrived afoot 
after a two days’ tramp and the proprietor, seeing the 
dusty troop with their bundles of capes, said solemnly: 

“Whoever does the best work, I’ll buy him a ticket 
that he may return to Seville on the train.” 

Two days the lord of the farm spent smoking on the 
balcony of his plaza while the boys from Seville fought 
young bulls, being frequently caught and trampled. 

He sharply reproved a poorly executed cape-play, and 
called out, “Get up off the ground, you big coward! 
Come, give him wine to get him over his fright,” when 
a boy persisted in remaining stretched on the ground 
after a bull had passed over his body. 


[ 78 ] 





BORN FOR THE BULL-RING 


The Little Cobbler killed a bull in a manner so much 
to the liking of the owner that the latter seated him at 
his table while his comrades stayed in the kitchen with 
the herders and farm laborers, dipping their horn spoons 
into the steaming broth. 

“Thou hast earned the return by railroad, my brave 
youth. Thou wilt travel far if thou dost not lose heart. 
Thou hast promise.” 

The Little Cobbler, starting on his return to Seville 
second class while the cuadrilla tramped afoot, thought 
that a new life was beginning for him, and he cast a look 
of covetousness at the enormous plantation with its ex- 
tensive olive orchards, its fields of grain, its mills, its 
meadows stretching out of sight in which were pasturing 
thousands of goats, while bulls and cows lay quietly 
chewing the cud. What wealth! If only he might some 
day come to possess something like that! 


[ 79 | 


CHAPTER IV 


AT CARMEN’S WINDOW-GRILLE 


ALLARDO’S prowess in fighting young bulls in 
the pueblos, heralded in Seville, caused the restless 
and insatiable amateurs, ever seeking a new luminary to 
eclipse those already discovered, to fix their attention 
upon him. 
“He certainly is a boy of wonderful promise,” they 
- used to say, on seeing him pass along Sierpes Street with 
short step, swinging his arms arrogantly. “He must be 
seen on classic ground.” This ground for them and for 
the Little Cobbler was the ring of the plaza at Seville. 
The boy was soon to find himself face to face with the 
real thing. His protector had acquired for him a span- 
gled costume, somewhat worn, a cast-off of some bull- 
fighter who had failed to win a name. A corrida of young 
bulls was arranged for a benefit, and influential devotees, 
eager for novelty, managed to include him in the pro- 
gramme gratuitously, as matador. 
The son of Sefiora Angustias declined to appear in the 
announcements under his nickname of Little Cobbler, 
which he desired to forget. He would have nothing to 
do with stage names, and less with menial offices. He 
wished to be known by the names of his father, he de- 
sired to be Juan Gallardo; no nickname should recall 
-his origin to the great people who undoubtedly would 
become his friends of the future. 


[ 80 ] 





AT CARMEN’S WINDOW-GRILLE 


The whole ward of the Feria flocked en masse to the 
corrida with a noisy and patriotic fervor. The dwellers 
in the ward of Macarena also showed their interest and 
the other popular wards allowed themselves to be car- 
ried away with equal enthusiasm. A new matador for 
Seville! There was not room for all and thousands were 
left outside the plaza anxiously awaiting the news of the 
corrida. 

Gallardo fought, killed, was knocked down by a bull 
without being hurt, and kept the public in constant anx- 
iety by his daring, which generally resulted fortu- 
’ nately and provoked colossal bellowings of enthusiasm. 
Certain devotees, esteemed for their opinions, smiled 
complacently. He had much to learn but he had courage 
and ambition, which is the important thing. 

“ Above all, he goes in to really kill ‘in classic style,’ 
and he keeps inside the field of reality.” 

At the opposite side of the plaza the old magistrate 
smiled compassionately beneath his white beard, admir- 
ing the boy’s bravery and the fine appearance he made in 
the spangled costume. When he saw him knocked down 
by the bull he fell back into his seat as if he were going 
to faint. That was too much for him. 

In one section proudly strutted the husband of Encar- 
naci6n, Gallardo’s sister, a leather-worker by trade, a 
prudent man, an enemy of vagrancy, who had married 
the cigarette girl, captured by her charms, but under the 
express condition of having nothing to do with her scamp 
of a brother. 

Gallardo, offended by his brother-in-law’s distrust, had 
‘never ventured into his shop, which was situated in the 
outskirts of Macarena, nor descended from the cere- 


[ 81 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


monious you when now and then of an afternoon he met 
him at his mother’s house. 

“I am going to see how that shameless brother of 
thine dodges the oranges,” he had said to his wife as he 
set out for the plaza. 

And now, from his seat, he bowed to the swordsman, 
calling him Juaniyo, saying thou, playing the peacock, 
content when the young bull-fighter, attracted by the 
many shouts, saw him at last and returned the greeting 
with a salute of his sword. 

“He is my brother-in-law,” said the leather-worker so 
that those near him might admire him. “I have always 
known the boy would amount to something at bull-fight- 
ing. My wife and I have helped him much.” 

The finale was triumphal. The multitude rushed im- 
petuously upon Juanillo, as if they were about to devour 
him by their outbursts of enthusiasm. Fortunately the 
brother-in-law was present to impose order, to shield him 
with his body, and to conduct him to the hired coach in 
which he seated himself at the bull-fighter’s side. 

When they arrived at the house in the ward of the 
Feria an immense crowd was following the carriage 
with shouts of joy and acclamations of praise that 
brought the people crowding to the doors. The news 
of the triumph had reached there ahead of the swords- 
man and the neighbors ran out to see him and to press 
his hand. 

Sefiora Angustias and her daughter were at the door. 
The leather-worker stepped out almost arm in arm with 
his brother-in-law, monopolizing him, shouting and ges- 
ticulating in the name of the family that nobody should 
touch him, as if he were a sick man. 


[ 82 | 





AT CARMEN’S WINDOW-GRILLE 


“Here he is, Encarnaci6n,” he said, shoving him to- 
ward his wife, “ Not even Roger de Flor himself —” 

And Encarnaci6én had no need to ask more, for she 
knew that her husband vaguely considered this historic 
individual the personification ‘of all greatness and that 
he only ventured to connect his name with portentous 
circumstances, 

Certain enthusiastic neighbors who came from the 
corrida flattered Sefiora Angustias, crying, “Blessed be 
the mother that has given birth to such a valiant youth!” 

Her friends overwhelmed her with their exclamations. 
What luck! And what sums of money he soon was go- 
ing to earn! 

The poor woman wore in’ her eyes an expression of 
astonishment and doubt. And was it really her little 
Juan that had made the people run with such enthu- 
siasm? Had they gone mad? 

But she suddenly fell upon him as if all the past had 
vanished; as if her worry and fretting were a dream; as 
if she confessed a shameful error. Her great flabby arms 
wound around the bull-fighter’s neck and her tears 
wetted his cheeks. 

“My son! Little Juan! If thy poor father could only 
see thee!” 

“Don’t cry, mother —for this is a day of joy. You 
shall see. If God gives me luck I will build you a house 
and your friends shall see you in a carriage and you shall 
wear all the Manila shawls you want.” 

The leather-worker received these promises of great- 
ness with signs of affirmation in the presence of his as- 
tonished wife, who had not yet recovered from her sur- 
prise at this radical change. 


[ 83 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


“Yes, Encarnacion; this youth will do it all if he un- 
dertakes it. It was extraordinary. Not even Roger de 
Flor himself — !” 

That night in the taverns and cafés of the popular 
wards they talked only of Gallardo. The bull-fighter of 
the future! He has flourished like the very roses. This 
boy is going to get away the favors from all the Cordo- 
van caliphs. 

In these assertions was revealed Sevillian pride in con- 
stant rivalry with the people) of Cordova, which was also 
a land of good bull-fighters. 

Gallardo’s existence changed completely from this day. 
The young gentlemen greeted him and made him sit 
among them around the doors of the cafés. The pretty 
girls who formerly satisfied his hunger and took care of 
his adornment, found themselves little by little repelled 
with smiling disregard. Even the old protector pru- 
dently withdrew in view of a certain indifference and 
bestowed his tender friendship on other boys who were 
just beginning. 

The management of the bull-plaza sought out Gal- 
lardo, humoring him as if he were already a celebrity. 
By announcing his name on the programmes success was 
assured, the plaza filled. The masses applauded wildly 
the “boy of Sefiora Angustias,” giving tongue to tales 
of his valor. Gallardo’s fame extended through Andalu- 
sia, and the leather-worker, without being solicited, 
mixed in everything and played the part of defender of 
his brother-in-law’s interests. A thoughtful and expert . 
man in business, according to himself, he saw the course 
of his life marked out. 

“Thy brother,” he would say to his wife at night as 


[ 84 | 


AT CARMEN’S WINDOW-GRILLE > 


they went to bed, “needs a practical man at his side to 
manage his interests. Dost thou suppose he would think 
well of naming me his manager? A great thing for him! 
Not even Roger de Flor himself! And for us—?” 

The leather-worker contemplated in imagination the 
great riches Gallardo was going to gain, and he thought 
also of his own five sons and those that were still to 
come. Who could tell if what the swordsman earned 
should fall to his nephews? 

For a year and a half Juan killed bullocks in the best 
plazas of Spain. His fame had reached Madrid. The 
devotees at the capital felt a curiosity to see the “ Sevil- 
lian boy” of whom the newspapers talked so much and 
of whom the “intelligent ” Andalusians boasted. 

Gallardo, escorted by a group of friends from his native 
city who were residing in Madrid, strutted along the 
sidewalk of Seville Street near the Café Inglés. The 
pretty girls smiled at his compliments and their eyes 
followed the toreador’s heavy gold chain and his big dia- 
mond ornaments acquired with his first earnings and on 
credit — discounting the future. A matador must show 
that he has an overplus of money by decorating his per- 
son and treating everybody generously. How far away 
were those days when he, with poor Chiripa, tramped 
along that same pavement, afraid of the police, contem- 
plating the bull-fighters with admiration and picking up 
the stubs of their cigars! 

His work in Madrid was lucky. He made friends and 
formed around him a group of enthusiasts hungry for 
novelty: who also proclaimed him the “ bull-fighter of the 
future” and complained because he had not yet received 
the “ alternative.” 


[ 85 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


“He’s going to earn money by basketfuls, Encarna- 
cién,” said the brother-in-law. “He is going to have 
millions, if he does n’t have some bad luck.” 

The life of the family changed completely. Gallardo, 
mingling with the young gentlemen of Seville, did not 
wish his mother to continue living in the house where 
she had passed her days of poverty. On his account 
they had moved to a better street in the city, but Sefiora 
Angustias inclined to remain faithful to the ward 
of the Feria, with the love which simple people feel as 


they grow old for the places where their youth was - 


spent. 

They lived in a much better house. The mother did 
not work and the neighbors paid her homage, finding in 
her a generous lender in their days of stress. Juan pos- 
sessed, besides the loud and showy jewels with which he 
adorned his person, that supreme luxury of every bull- 
fighter, a powerful sorrel mare, with a cowboy saddle 
and a fine blanket bordered with multicolored fringe 
across the pommel. Mounted on her he trotted along 
the streets with no other object than to receive the hom- 
age of his friends, who greeted his elegance with noisy 
“ Olés!"’ This satisfied his desire for popularity for the 
moment. On other occasions he rode with the young 
bloods, forming a sightly troop of horsemen, to the past- 
ure of Tablada, on the eve of a great corrida, to see the 
herd that others had to kill. 

“When I take the ‘alternative,’” he was saying at 
every step, making all his plans for the future depend on 
that. 

He deferred until then a series of projects that would 
surprise his mother, poor woman, overcome by the good 


[ 86 ] 


> 








—_— 


AT CARMEN’S WINDOW-GRILLE 


fortune fallen suddenly upon her house, and which, she 
thought, could not be surpassed. 

The day of the “ alternative ” came at last, the day of 
Gallardo’s recognition as a killer of bulls. A celebrated 
maestro ceded to him his sword and muleia in the open 
ring of Seville and the crowd went mad with enthusiasm, 
seeing how he felled with a single sword-thrust the first 
“formal” bull that appeared before him. The following 
month, this tauromachic degree was bestowed again in 
the plaza of Madrid where another maestro, not less cele- 
brated, again gave him the “ alternative” in a corrida of 
Miura bulls. 

He was no longer a novillero; he was a matador, and his 
name figured beside those of old swordsmen whom he 
had worshipped as unapproachable gods when he was 
going about among the little towns taking part in the 
bull-baitings. He remembered having lain in wait for 
one of them at a station near Cordova to ask aid from 
him when he passed through on the train with his cuad- 
rilla, That night he had something to eat, thanks to the 
generous fraternity that exists among the people of the 
queue which impels a swordsman of princely luxury to 
hand out a duro and a cigar to the unfortunate little vaga- 
bond on the road to his first capeas. 

Contracts began to shower upon the new swordsman. 
In all the plazas of the Peninsula they desired to see 
him, moved by curiosity. The newspapers devoted to 
the profession popularized his picture and his life, dis- 
torting the latter with novel episodes. No other mata- 
dor had so many engagements. He was going to make 
money abundantly. 

Antonio, his brother-in-law, told of this success with 


[ 87 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


clouded brow and loud protestations to his wife and her 
mother. The swordsman was an ungrateful fellow — 
the history of all who rise suddenly. And he had worked 
so hard for Juan! With what firmness had he argued 
with the managers when the bullock-fight was arranged 
for him. And now that he was a maesiro he had as a 
manager a gentleman he had met only a short time ago; 
one Don José who was not one of the family but one for 
whom Gallardo showed esteem on account of his pres- 
tige as an old connoisseur. 

“And he will be sorry for it,” he ended, adding, “A 
man has only one family and where will he find such 
loving care as we have given him ever since he was lit- 
tle? He is the loser. With me he would flourish like 
Roger de—” 

He interrupted himself, swallowing the famous name 
for fear of the jokes of the bandcrilleros and amateurs who 
frequented the house and who had no respect for the 
historical object of the leather-worker’s adoration. 

Gallardo, with the generosity of a victor, gave some 
satisfaction to his brother-in-law by putting him in 
charge of the house he was having built, with carte blanche 
as to expenses. The swordsman, overcome by the ease 
with which money came into his hands, was willing to 
let his brother-in-law rob him, thus compensating him 
for not having been chosen as manager. 

The torero was to realize his desire of building a house 
for his mother. She, poor woman, who had spent her 
life scrubbing floors for the rich, should have her beau- 
tiful courtyard with marble pavements, with tiled wain- 
scot, and rooms with furniture like those of the gentry, 
with servants, yes, many servants to wait upon her. He 


[ 88 ] 


—_ 


AT CARMEN’S WINDOW-GRILLE 


also felt united by a traditional affection to the ward 
where his childish poverty had slipped from him. He 
rejoiced to outshine the very people who had employed 
his mother as a servant and to give a handful of peseias, 
in moments of need, to those who had taken shoes to his 
father or who had given him a crumb in those sorrowful 
days. He bought several wold houses, one of them the 
same in whose portal the cobbler had worked. He had 
them torn down and began to build an edifice that was to 
have white walls with green painted grilles, a vestibule 
lined with tiles, and a barred gate of delicately wrought 
iron through which should be seen the courtyard with 
its fountain in the centre: and its marble columns, be- 
tween which should hang gilded cages with chattering 
birds. 

Antonio’s satisfaction at having full license in the 
direction and profit of the works was diminished some- 
what by terrible news,— Gallardo had a sweetheart! He 
was travelling now in midsummer, running over Spain 
from one plaza to another, making famous sword-thrusts 
and receiving applause; but almost daily he sent a letter 
to a certain girl in the ward and in the short respites 
between wandering from one corrida to another aban- 
doned his companions and took the train to spend the 
night in Seville, courting her. 

“Have you seen?” shouted the leather-worker, scan- 
dalized at what was taking place “in the bosom of the 
home” before the very eyes of his wife and mother-in- 
law. “A sweetheart! without saying a word to the fam- 
ily, which is the only thing worth while in the whole 
world! The Sefior wants to marry. Without doubt he 
is tired of us. What a shameless fellow!” 


[ 89 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Encarnaci6n approved these assertions with rude 
grimaces of her strong, fierce face, content to be able to 
express herself thus against the brother who filled her 
with envy by his good fortune. Yes, he had ever been 
a shameless fellow. 

But the mother protested. “No, indeed! I know the 
girl and her poor mother was a chum of mine in the 
Factory. She is as pure as nuggets of gold, trim, good, 
fine-looking. I have already told Juan that it would 
please me and the sooner the better.” 

She was an orphan, living with an aunt and uncle who 
kept a little grocery store in the ward. Her father, an 
old-time dealer in brandies, had left her two houses on 
the outskirts of Macarena. 

“A little thing,” said Sefiora Angustias, “ but the girl 
does n’t come empty-handed. She brings something of 
her own. And as for clothes — Josi! you ought to see her 
little hands of gold; how she embroiders the clothes, how 
she is preparing her trousseau.” 

Gallardo vaguely recollected having played with her 
when they were children near the portal where the cob- 
bler worked while the two mothers chatted. She was a 
sprightly creature, thin and dark, with eyes of a gypsy 
—the pupils black and sharply rounded like drops of 
ink, the corneas bluish white and the corners a pallid 
rose-hue. In their races she was as agile as a boy and 
her legs looked like reeds; her hair hung about her head 
in thick rebellious locks twisting like black snakes. 
Then she had dropped out of his sight and he did not 
meet her until many years afterward when he was a 
novillero, and had begun to make a name. 

It was one Corpus Christi day — one of the few feasts 


[ go | 








AT CARMEN’S WINDOW-GRILLE 


when the women, shut up in the house through Orien- 
tal laziness, go out upon the streets like Moorish women 
at liberty, wearing maniillas of silk lace and carnations on 
their breasts. Gallardo saw a young girl, tall, slender, 
and at the same time strongly built, the waist confined 
in handsome firm curves with all the vigor of youth. 
Her face, of a rice-like pallor, colored on seeing the bull- 
fighter; her great luminous eyes hid themselves beneath 
their long lashes. 

“That girl knows me,” said Gallardo to himself. 
“She must have seen me in the ring.” 

And when, after having followed her and her aunt, he 
heard that it was Carmen, the companion of his infancy, 
he was astonished and confused by the marvellous trans- 
formation from the dark thin girl of the past. They be- 
came sweethearts and all the neighbors discussed their 
affair, seeing in them a new honor for the neighborhood. 

“This is how it is with me,” said Gallardo to his en- 
thusiasts, adopting a princely air. “I don’t want to im- 
itate other bull-fighters who marry seforitas that are all 
hats and feathers and flounces. For me, those of my 
own class; a rich maniilla, a fine carriage, grace; that’s 
what I want — Olé!” 

His friends, enraptured, spoke highly of the girl_—a 
splendid lass, with curves to her body that would set 
any one wild, and what an air! But the bull-fighter 
only made a wry face. The less they talked of Carmen 
the better. 

In the evening, as he conversed with her through a 
grated window, contemplating her Moorish face framed 
in the flowering vines, the servant of a nearby tavern 
presented himself, carrying glasses of Andalusian wine 


[ 91 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


on a painted tray. He was the envoy who came to col- 
lect the toll, the traditional custom of Seville, which 
demanded pay from sweethearts who talk through the 
grille. 

The bull-fighter drank a glass, offering another to the . 
girl, and said to the boy: 

“Give the gentlemen my thanks, and say I’ll come 
along by the shop after a while. Also tell Montafiés to 
allow no one else to pay, that Juan Gallardo will pay 
for everybody.” 

And when he had finished his talk with his betrothed 
he went into the tavern where he was awaited by the 
tipplers, some enthusiastic friends, others unknown ad- 
mirers anxious to toast the health of the bull-fighter in 
tall glasses of wine. 

On returning from his first trip as a full-fledged mat- 
ador he spent the winter evenings close by Carmen’s 
grated window, wrapped in his cape of greenish cloth, 
which had a narrow collar and was made generously 
ample, with vines and arabesques embroidered in black 
silk. 

“They say that thou dost drink much,” sighed Car- 
men, pressing her face against the bars. 

“Nonsense! Courtesies of friends that one has to 
return and nothing more. Thou knowest that a bull- 
fighter is—a bull-fighter, and he is not going to live 
like a begging friar.” 

“They say that thou goest with bad women.” 

“That ’s a lie! That was in other days, before I met 
thee. Man alive! I would like to meet the son of a goat 
that carries thee such tales.” 

“And when shall we get married?” she continued, 


[ 92 | 








AT CARMEN’S WINDOW-GRILLE 


cutting off her sweetheart’s indignant remarks by a 
question. 

“ As soon as the house is finished, and would to God 
it were to-morrow! That worthless brother-in-law of 
mine will never get it done. He knows that it’s a good 
thing for him and he is sleeping on his luck.” 

“T’ll set things to rights, Juaniyo, after we are mar- 
ried. Thou shalt see how well everything will run along. 
Thou shalt see how thy mother loves me.” 

And so their dialogues continued while waiting for the 
hour of the wedding which was being talked about all 
over Seville. Carmen’s aunt and uncle and Sefiora An- 
gustias discussed it whenever they met, but in spite of 
this the bull-fighter scarcely ever entered the home of 
his betrothed. They preferred to see one another 
through the grille, according to custom. 

The winter passed. Gallardo mounted his horse and 
went hunting in the pasture lands of some gentlemen 
who thou-ed him with a protecting air. He must pre- 
serve the agility of his body by continual exercise, in 
preparation for the next bull-fight season. He feared 
losing his strength and nimbleness. 

The most tireless propagandist of his glory was Don 
José, a gentleman who performed the office of his man- 
ager, and always called him his matador. He intervened 
in all Gallardo’s affairs, not admitting a better right even 
to his own family. He lived on his rents with no other 
occupation than talking about bulls and bull-fighters. 
For him bull-fights were the only interesting thing in 
the world and he divided the human race into two classes, 
the elect nations who had bull-rings, and the dull ones 
for whom there is no sun, nor joy, nor good Andalusian 


| 93 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


wine — in spite of which they think themselves powerful 
and happy though they have never seen even a single 
ill-fought corrida of bullocks. 

He brought to his enthusiasm the energy of a warrior 
and the faith of an inquisitor. Fat, still young, bald, and 
with a light beard, this father of a family, happy and 
gay in everyday life, was fierce and stubborn on the 
benches of a ring when his neighbors expressed opinions 
contrary to his. He felt himself capable of fighting the 
whole audience in defence of a bull-fighter friend, and he 
disturbed the ovations with extemporaneous protests 
when they were offered to an athlete who failed to enjoy 
his affection. 

He had been a cavalry officer, more from love of 
horses than of war. His corpulence and his enthusiasm 
for the bulls had caused him to retire from the service. 
He spent the summer witnessing bull-fights and the 
winter talking about them. He was eager to be the 
guide, the mentor, the manager of a bull-fighter, but all 
the maestros had their own and so the advent of Gallardo 
was a stroke of fortune for him. The slightest asper- 
sion cast upon the merits of his favorite turned him red 
with fury and converted the tauromachic dispute into a 
personal question. He counted it as a glorious act of 
war to have come to blows in a café with a couple of 
contemptuous amateurs who criticised his matador as be- 
ing too boastful. 

He felt as though there were not enough papers 
printed to publish Gallardo’s glory, and on winter morn- 
ings he would go and place himself on a corner touched 
by a ray of sun-light at the entrance of Sierpes Street, 
and as his friends passed, he would say in a loud voice, 


[ 94 ] 





: 
: 
| 
: 


AT CARMEN’S WINDOW-GRILLE 


“No! there is only one man!” as if he were talking to 
himself, affecting to not see those who were drawing 
near. “The greatest man in the world! And Jet him 
that thinks to the contrary speak out. The only one!” 

“ Who?” asked his friends, jestingly, pretending not 
to understand him. 

“Who can it be? Juan!” 

“ What Juan?” 

With a gesture of indignation and surprise he would 
answer, “What Juan could it be? As if there were 
many Juans! Juan Gallardo.” 

“ But, man alive,” some of them would say to him, 
“one might think you two lie down together! It is 
thou, may be, that is going to get married to him?” 

“Only because he don’t want it so,” Don José would 
stoutly answer, with the fervor of idolatry. 

And on seeing other friends approach, he forgot their 
jibes and continued repeating: 

“No! there is only one man. The greatest in the 
world. And he that does n’t believe it let him open his 
beak, for here am I!” 

Gallardo’s wedding was a great event. The new 
house was opened with it—the house of which the 
leather-worker was so proud, where he showed the court- 
yard, the columns, the tiles, as if all were the work of 
his hands. 

They were married in San Gil, before the Virgin of 
Hope, called the Virgin of Macarena. At the church 
door the hundreds of Chinese shawls embroidered with 
exotic flowers and birds, in which the bride’s friends 
were draped, glistened in the sunshine. 

A deputy to the Cortes stood as best man. 


[95 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Above the black and white felts of the majority of the 
guests rose the shining tall hats of the manager and 
other gentlemen, Gallardo’s devotees. All of them 
smiled with satisfaction at the deference of popularity 
that was shown them on going about with the bull- 
fighter. 

Alms were given at the door of the house during the 
day. The poor came even from the distant towns, at- 
tracted by the fame of this gorgeous wedding. 

There was a great feast in the courtyard. Photog- 
raphers took instantaneous views for the Madrid news- 
papers. Gallardo’s wedding was a national event. Far 
into the night guitars strummed with melancholy plaint, 
accompanied by hand-clapping and the click of cas- 
tanets. The girls, their arms held high, beat the marble 
floor with their little feet, whirling their skirts and man- 
tillas around their slender bodies, moving with the rhythm 
characteristic of the Sevillanas. Bottles of rich Andalusian 
wines were uncorked by the dozen; from hand to hand 
passed cups of ardent sherry, of strong montilla, and of 
the wine of San Licar, pale and perfumed. Every one 
was drunk but their intoxication left them sweet, sub- 
dued, and sad, with no other manifestation than sighs 
and songs, many starting at once to intone melancholy 
chants that told of prisons, of deaths, and of the poor 
mother, the eternal theme of the popular songs of 
Andalusia. 

The last guests took their leave at midnight and the 
bride and groom were left in the house with Sefiora An- 
gustias. The leather-worker, going out with his wife, 
made a gesture of desperation. He was drunk and fu- 
rious because no one had paid him any attention during 


[ 96 ] 


——— 


eee SS a Se 





Gallardo’s wedding was a national event. Far into the 
night guitars strummed with melancholy plaints .°4 4 
Girls, their arms held high, beat the marble floor with 
their little feet — 


et 








AT CARMEN’S WINDOW-GRILLE 


the entire day. As if he were nobody! As if the family 
did not exist! _ 

“ They cast us out, Encarnacion. That girl, with her 
little face like the Virgin of Hope, is going to be mistress 
of everything and there won’t be even a crumb left for 
us. Thou shalt see how they will fill the place = 
children.” 

And the prolific man grew indignant thinking of Gal- 
lardo’s future offspring being brought into the world 
with no other purpose than to harm his own. 

Time went on. A year passed without Sefior Antonio’s 
prediction being fulfilled. Gallardo and his wife ap- 
peared at all the functions with’the pomp and show of a 
rich and popular bridal pair; she with maniillas that drew 
forth screams of admiration from the poor women; he, 
wearing his brilliants and ever ready to draw out his 
pocket-book to treat the people and to succor the beg- 
gars that came in bands. The gypsies, coppery of skin 
and chattering like witches, besieged Carmen with hap- 
py prophesies. Might God bless her! She was going to 
have a boy, a little prattling babe, more beautiful than 
the sun itself. They read it in the white of her eyes. 

But in vain Carmen flushed with joy and modesty, 
lowering her eyes; in vain the espada walked erect, proud _ 
of his achievements, believing that the coveted fruit 
would soon appear. i 

And then another year passed without the séallention 
of their hopes. Sefiora Angustias was sad when they 
spoke to her about it. She had other grandchildren, 
Encarnacién’s little ones, who by order of the leather- 
worker spent the day in their grandmother’s house trying 
in every way to please their uncle. But she, wishing to 

a 


+s, 





THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


compensate Gallardo for the hardships of the past, 
prayed with fervent affection for a child of his to care 
for, yearning to shower upon him all the love she could 
not give the father in his infancy because of her poverty. 

“TIT know what is the matter,” said the old woman 
sadly, “poor Carmen has no peace of mind. Thou 
shouldst see that unhappy creature when Juan is travel- 
ling about the world.” 

During the winter, in the season of rest when the bull- 
fighter was at home or went to the country testing bul- 
locks and joining in the hunt, all was well. Carmen was 
then content knowing that her husband was in no dan- 
ger. She laughed on the slightest pretext; she ate 
heartily; her face was animated by the color of health; 
but as soon as the spring came and Juan left home to 
fight bulls in the rings of Spain the poor girl, pale and 
weak, would fall into a painful stupefaction, her eyes en- 
larged by fear and ready to shed tears. 

“ Seventy-two bull-fights this year,” said the friends 
of the house, commenting on the swordsman’s contracts. 
“No one is so sought after as he.” 

And Carmen smiled with a grimace of pain. Seventy- 
two afternoons of agony like a criminal doomed to death, 
awaiting the arrival of the telegram at night-fall and at 
the same time dreading it! Seventy-two days of terror, 
of vague superstitions, thinking that a word forgotten in 
a prayer might influence the luck of the absent one! 
Seventy-two days of painful paradox, living in a tranquil 
house, seeing the same people, her accustomed exist- 
ence running on, calm and peaceful as though nothing 
extraordinary were happening in the world, hearing the 
play of her husband’s nephews in the courtyard and the 


[ 98 | 


AT CARMEN’S WINDOW-GRILLE 


| flower-seller’s song on the street, while far, very far 
‘away, in unknown cities, her Juan, in the presence of 
thousands of eyes, fought with wild beasts, seeing death 
‘pass close to his breast at each movement of the red 
'rag he held in his hands! 

Ah! those days of bull-fights, feast-days, on which 
|the sky seemed more beautiful and the once solitary 
| street resounded beneath the feet of the holiday crowd, 
‘when guitars strummed with accompaniment of hand- 
clapping and song in the tavern at the corner. Carmen, 
| plainly dressed, with her mantilla over her eyes, left the 
| house as if fleeing from evil dreams, going to take refuge 
_in the churches. Her simple faith, which uncertainty 
_burdened with superstitions, made her go from altar 
to altar as she recalled to mind the merits and miracles 
of each image. She went to San Gil, the church that 
had seen the happiest day of her existence, she knelt be- 
fore the Virgin of Macarena, provided candles, many 
candles, and by their ruddy glow contemplated the brown 
face of the image with its black eyes and long lashes, 
which, it was said, resembled her own. In her she 
trusted. For a good reason was she Our Lady of Hope. 
Surely at this very hour she was protecting Juan by her 
divine power. 

But suddenly indecision and fear rudely burst through 
her beliefs, tearing them asunder. The Virgin was a 
woman and women are so weak! Her destiny was to 
suffer and weep, as she wept for her husband, as the 
other had wept for her Son. She must confide in stronger 
powers; she must implore the aid of a more vigorous pro- 
tection. And, in the stress of her agony, abandoning the 
Macarena without scruple as a useless friendship is for- 


[99] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


gotten, she went at other ‘times to the church of San © 
Lorenzo in search of Jesus, He of the Great Power, the © 


Man-God crowned with thorns with the cross on his 


back, sweaty and tearful, the work of the sculptor Mon- > 


tafiés, an awe-inspiring image. 

The dramatic sadness of the Nazarene stumbling 
against the stones and bent beneath the weight of the 
cross seemed to console the poor wife. Lord of the 
Great Power! This vague and grandiose title tranquil- 
lized her. If the god dressed in brown velvet and gold © 


ary a gad 





would but deign to listen to her sighs, to her prayers | 
repeated in eager haste, with dizzy rapidity, she was © 
sure that Juan would walk unscathed out of the ring 


where he was at that moment. Again she would give 
money to a sacristan to light candles, and she passed 
hours contemplating the vacillating reflection of the red 
tongues on the image, believing she saw in the varnished 
face, by these alternations of shade and light, smiles of 
consolation, kind expressions that promised felicity. 

The Lord of Great Power did not deceive her. On 
her return to the house she was presented with the little 
blue paper which she opened with a trembling hand: 
“ As usual.”” She could breathe again, she could sleep 
like the criminal that is freed for the instant from imme- 
diate death; but in two or three days again came the 
agony of uncertainty, the terrible torture of doubt. 

Carmen, in spite of the love she professed for her hus- 
band, had hours of rebellion. If she had known what 
this existence was before she married! At certain mo- 
ments, craving the sisterhood of pain, she went in search 
of the wives of the bull-fighters who figured in Juan’s 
cuadrilla, hoping they could give her news. 


[ 100 | 


AT CARMEN’S WINDOW-GRILLE 


Nacional’s good woman, who kept a tavern in the same 
ward, received the master’s wife with tranquillity, won- 
| dering at her fears. She was accustomed to such an 
/existence. Her husband must be all right since he sent 
no word. Telegrams cost dear and a banderillero earns 
| little. If the newsboys did not shout an accident it was 
| because none had happened. And she continued atten- 
| tive to the service of her establishment as if no trace of 
| worry could make its way into her blunted sensibility. 
Again, crossing the bridge, Carmen went to the ward 
| of Triana in search of the wife of Potaje, the picador, a 
kind of gypsy that lived in a hut like a hen-house sur- 
rounded by coppery, dirty youngsters whom she threat- 
ened and terrified with stentorian yells. The visit of the 
master’s wife filled her with pride, but the latter’s anxiety 
almost made her laugh. She ought not to be afraid. 
Those on foot always escaped the bull and Sefior Juan 
Gallardo’s good angel watched over him when he threw 
himself upon the beasts. The bulls killed but few. The 
terrible thing was being thrown from the horse. It was 
known to be the end of all picadores after a life of horrible 
falls ; those who did not die suddenly from an unforeseen 
and thundering accident finished their days in madness. 
Thus poor Potaje would die —and so many hard strug- 
gles in exchange for a handful of duros,— while others — 
This last she did not say but her eyes revealed the pro- 
test against the favoritism of Fate for those fine youths 
who, by a thrust of the sword, took the applause, the 
popularity, and the money, with no greater risks than 
those faced by their humbler associates. 
Little by little Carmen grew accustomed to this new 
life. The cruel suspense on bull-fight days, the visits 


j 
| 
‘ 
i 
j 
i 
j 


{ roz ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


to the saints, the superstitious fears, she accepted them 
all as incidents necessary to her existence. Moreover, 
her husband’s good luck and the continual conversation 
in the house on the events of the contest finally famil- 
iarized her with the danger. The fierce bull became for 
her as for Gallardo a generous and noble beast come into 
the world with no other purpose than to enrich and give 
fame to those who kill him. 

She never attended a bull-fight. Since that afternoon 
on which she saw him who was to be her husband in his 
first novillada, she had not returned to the plaza. She 
lacked courage to witness a bull-fight, even one in which 
Gallardo did not take part. She would faint with ter- 
ror on seeing other men face the danger dressed in the 
same costume as her Juan. 

In the third year of their marriage Gallardo was 
wounded at Valencia. Carmen did not know it at once. 
The telegram arrived on time with the customary, “ As 
usual.’ It was a merciful act of Don José, the manager, 
who, visiting Carmen every day and resorting to skilful 
jugglery to prevent her reading the papers, put off her 
knowledge of the misfortune for a week. 

When Carmen heard of it through the indiscretion of 
some neighbor women she wished to take the train im- 
mediately to go to her husband, to take care of him, for 
she imagined him abandoned. It was not necessary. Be- 
fore she could start the swordsman arrived, pale from the 
loss of blood, and with one leg doomed to a long season 
of immobility, but happy and anxious to tranquillize his 
family. The house was from that time a kind of sanctu- 
ary, hundreds passing through the courtyard to greet 
Gallardo, “the greatest man in the world,” seated there 


[ 102 | 


AT CARMEN’S WINDOW-GRILLE 


in a big willow chair with his leg on a tabourette and 
smoking as tranquilly as though his body were not torn 
by an atrocious wound. 

Doctor Ruiz, who came with him to Seville, prophesied 
that he would be well before a month, marvelling at the 
energy of his constitution. The facility with which bull- 
fighters were cured was a mystery to him in spite of his 
long practice of surgery. The horn, dirty with blood 
and animal excrement, often breaking into splinters at 
the blow, tore the flesh, scratched it, perforated it, mak- 
ing at once a deep penetrating injury and a bruised con- 
tusion, and yet these atrocious wounds healed with 
greater ease than those in ordinary life. 

“T don’t know what it is, this mystery,” said the old 
surgeon with an air of doubt. “Either those boys have 
got the flesh of a dog, or else the horn, with all its filth, 
carries a curative virtue that is unknown to us.” 

A short time afterward, Gallardo went back to bull- 
fighting, his ardor uncooled by the accident, contrary to 
the prediction of his enemies. 

Four years after his marriage the swordsman gave 
his wife and mother a great surprise. They were be- 
coming landed proprietors, yea, proprietors on a great 
scale, with lands “stretching beyond view,” with olive 
orchards, mills, great flocks and herds, and a plantation 
like those of the rich gentlemen of Seville. 

Gallardo experienced the desire of all bull-fighters, 
who long to be lords over lands, breeders of horses, and 
owners of herds of cattle. Urban wealth? No. Values 
in paper do not tempt them nor do they understand them. 
The bull makes them think of the green meadow; the 
horse recalls the country to their minds. The continual 


[ 103 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


necessity of movement and exercise, the hunt, and con- 
stant travel during the winter months, cause them to de- 
sire the possession of land. According to Gallardo the 
only rich man was he who owned a plantation and great 
herds of animals. Since his days of poverty, when he had 
tramped along the roads through olive orchards and pas- 
ture grounds, he had nursed his fervent desire to 
possess leagues and leagues of land, enclosed with 
barbed-wire fences against the depredation of other men. 

His manager knew these desires. Don José it was 
who took charge of his affairs, collecting the money from 
the ring-managers and carrying an account that he tried 
in vain to explain to his matador. 

“TI don’t understand that music,” said Gallardo, con- 
tent in his ignorance, “I only know how to despatch 
bulls. Do whatever you wish, Don José; I have con- 
fidence in you and I know that you do everything for 
my good.” So Don José, who scarcely ever thought 
about his own property, leaving it to the weak adminis- 
tration of his wife, occupied himself at all hours with the 
bull-fighter’s fortune, placing his money at interest with 
the heart of a usurer to make it fruitful. One day he 
fell upon his client joyfully. 

“T have what thou desirest, a plantation like a world, 
and besides, it is very cheap; a regular bargain. Next 
week we will get it into writing.” 

Gallardo was eager to know the name and situation 
of the plantation. 

“Tt is called La Rinconada.” 

His desires were fulfilled! When Gallardo went with 
his wife and mother to take possession of the plantation 


[ 104 ] 


AT CARMEN’S WINDOW-GRILLE 


he showed them the hayloft where he had slept with the 
companions of his wandering misery, the room in which 
he had dined with the master, and the little plaza where 
he had stabbed a calf, earning for the first time the right 
to travel by train without having to hide beneath the 
seats. 


[ 105 ] 


CHAPTER V 
THE LURE OF GOLDEN HAIR 


N winter evenings when Gallardo was not at La Rin- 

conada, a company of friends gathered in the dining- 
room of his house after supper. Among the first arrivals 
were the leather-worker and his wife, who always had 
two of their children in the swordsman’s home. Carmen, 
wishing to forget her barrenness and oppressed by the 
silence of the great dwelling, kept her sister-in-law’s 
youngest children with her most of the time. They, 
partly from spontaneous affection and partly by com- 
mand of their parents, affectionately caressed with kiss- 
ings and cat-like purrings their handsome aunt and their 
generous and popular uncle. 

When Nacional came to spend an hour with them, al- 
though the visit was rather a matter of duty, the circle 
was always enlivened. Gallardo, dressed in a rich jacket 
like a country gentleman, his head uncovered, and his 
coleta smooth and shiny, received his banderillero with 
waggish amiability. What were the devotees saying? 
What lies were they circulating? How was the republic 
coming along? 

“ Garabato, give Sebastian a glass of wine.” 

But Nacional refused this courtesy. No wine for him! 
He did not drink. Wine was to blame for the failures of 
the laboring class; and the whole party on hearing this 
broke out into a laugh, as though he had made some 


[ 106 ] 





THE LURE OF GOLDEN HAIR 


witty remark which they had been expecting. Then the 
banderillero began to be entertaining. 

The only one who remained silent, with hostile eyes, 
was the leather-worker. He hated Nacional, regarding 
him as an enemy. He also was prolific in his fidelity, as 
befits a man of good principles, so that a swarm of young 
children buzzed about the little tavern clinging to the 
mother’s skirts. Gallardo and his wife had been god- 
parents to the two youngest, thus uniting the swords- 
man and the banderillero in the relationship of compadres. 
Hypocrite! Every Sunday he brought the two god- 
children, dressed in their best, to kiss the hand of their 
sponsors in baptism, and the leather-worker paled with 
indignation whenever he saw Nacional’s children receive 
apresent. They came torob his own. Maybe the bander- 
illero even dreamt that a part of the swordsman’s fortune 
might fall into the hands of these god-children. Thief! 
A man who was not of the family! 

When he did not receive Nacional’s words in silence 
and with looks of hatred he tried to censure him, show- 
ing himself in favor of the immediate shooting of all who 
stir up rebellion and are in consequence a danger to good 
citizens. 

Nacional was ten years older than the maestro. When 
Gallardo began to fight in the capeas he was already a 
banderillero in professional cuadrillas and he had been to 
America where he had killed bulls in the plaza at Lima. 
At the beginning of his career he enjoyed a certain pop- 
ularity on account of being young and agile. He had 
also shone for a few days as “the bull-fighter of the fu- 
ture,” and the Sevillian connoisseurs, their eyes upon 
him, expected him to eclipse the bull-fighters from other 


[ 107 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


lands. But this lasted only a short while. On his return: 
from his travels with the prestige of hazy and distant 
exploits, the populace rushed to the bull-plaza of Seville 
to see him kill. Thousands were unable to get in; but 
at the moment of final trial “he lacked heart,” as the 
amateurs said. He lodged the banderillas with skill, like 
a conscientious and serious workman who fulfils his 
duty, but when he went in to kill the instinct of self-pres- 
ervation, stronger than his will, kept him at a distance 
from the bull and prevented his taking advantage of his 
stature and his strong arm. Nacional renounced the 
highest glories of tauromachy. Banderillero, nothing 
more! He resigned himself to be a journeyman of his 
_ art, serving others younger than himself and earning a 
_ meagre salary as a pedn to support his family and lay by 
some scanty savings to establish a small industry by and 
by. His kindness and his honest habits were proverbial 
among the people of the coleta. The wife of his matador 
was fond of him, believing him a kind of guardian angel 
of her husband’s fidelity. , 

When, in summer, Gallardo with all his people went to 
a music hall in some provincial capital, eager for gam- 
bling and sport after having despatched the bulls in sev- 
eral corridas, Nacional remained silent and grave among 
the singing girls with their gauzy dress and their painted 
lips, like an anchorite from the desert in the midst of the 
courtesans of Alexandria. He was not scandalized but 
he grew sad thinking of the wife and children that waited 
for him in Seville. All defects and corruptions in the 
world were, in his opinion, the result of lack of education. 
Of course those poor women did not know how to read 
and write. The same was true of himself and, as he 


[ 108 ] 


THE LURE OF GOLDEN HAIR 


attributed his insignificance and poverty of intellect to 
that, he laid all misery and degradation in the world to 
the same cause. In his early youth he had been an iron- 
founder and an active member of the International Work- 
men’s Union, an assiduous listener to his more fortunate 
fellow-workmen who could read in a loud voice what 
the newspapers said of the welfare of the people. He 
played at soldiering in the days of the national militia, 
figuring in the battalions which wore the red cap as the 
sign of being implacable federalist propagandists. He 
spent whole days before the platforms raised in the pub- 
lic squares, where various societies declared themselves 
in permanent session and orators succeeded one another 
day and night, haranguing with Andalusian fluency about 
the divinity of Jesus and the increase in the price of 
articles of prime necessity, until, when hard times came, 
a strike left him in the trying situation of the workman 
black-listed on account of his ideas, finding a 
turned away from every shop. 

He liked bull-fighting and he became a torero at twen- 
ty-four, just as he might have cha any other trade. 
He, moreover, knew a great deal and talked with con- 
tempt of the absurdities of the present state of society. 
Not for nothing does one spend years hearing the papers 
read! However ill he might fare at bull-fighting he 
would surely earn more and have an easier life than if he 
were a skilled workman. The people, remembering the 
time when he shouldered the musket of the popular 
militia, nicknamed him Nacional. 

He spoke of the taurine profession with a certain re- 
gret, in spite of the years he had spent therein, and he 
apologized for belonging to it. The committee of his 


[ r09 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


» district, who had decreed the expulsion of all who at- 
tended bull-fights on account of their barbarous and re- 
trograding influence, had made an exception in his favor, 
retaining him as am active member in good standing. 

“TI know,” he said in Gallardo’s dining-room, “that 
this business of the bulls is a reactionary thing — some- 
thing belonging to the times of the Inquisition; I don’t 
know whether I explain myself. The people need to 
learn to read and write as much as they need bread and it 
is not well for them to spend their money on us while 
they so greatly lack schooling. ‘That is what the papers 
that come from Madri’ say. But the club members ap- 
preciate me, and the committee, after a long preachment 
from Don Joselito, have agreed to keep me on the roll 
of membership.” 

Don Joselito, the school teacher and chairman of the 
committee of the district, was a learned young man of 
Israelitish extraction who brought to the political strug- 

gle the ardor of the Maccabees and was undistressed by 
' his brown ugliness and his small-pox scars because they 
gave him a certain likeness to Danton. Nacional al- 
ways listened to him open-mouthed. 

When Don José, Gallardo’s business manager, and 
other friends of the master, jokingly disputed his 
doctrines at those after-dinner gatherings, making 
' extravagant objections, poor Nacional was in suspense, 
scratching his forehead from perplexity. 

“You are gentlemen and have studied and I don’t 
know how to read or write. That is why we of the 
lower class are like sheep. But if only Don Joselito 
were here! By the life of the blue dove! If you could 
hear him when he lets loose and talks like an angel!” 


[ x10 ] 


THE LURE OF*GOLDEN HAIR 


To fortify his faith, somewhat weakened by the as- 
saults of the jokers, he would go the following day to 
see Don Joselito, who seemed to luxuriate in bitterness, 
as a descendant of the persecuted chosen people, and look 
over what Joselito called his museum of horrors. The 
Hebrew, returned to the native land of his forefathers, 
was collecting relics of the Inquisition in a room of the 
school, with the vengeful accuracy of a prisoner who 
might reconstruct bone by bone the skeleton of his jailor. 
In a bookcase stood rows of parchment tomes — decrees 
of sentences pronounced by the Inquisition and cate- 
chisms for interrogating the offender undergoing torture. 
On one wall hung a white banner with the dreaded 
green cross. In the corners were heaped instruments 
of torture — frightful scourges and fiendish devices for 
cleaving, for stripping and tearing human flesh, that 
Don Joselito found in the shops of the curio-dealers and 
catalogued as ancient belongings of the Holy Office. Na- 
cional’s kind and simple soul, easily roused to anger, rose 
in rebellion at the sight of these rusty irons and green 
crosses. . 

“Man alive! And yet there are those that say —! By 
the life of the dove! I would like to see some folks 
here!” 

Often in summer, when the cuadrilla was going from 
one province to another and Gallardo went into the sec- 
ond class carriage in which “the boys” were travelling, 
some rural priest or pair of friars would get on board. 
The banderilleros would nudge each other with their el- 
bows and wink one eye looking at Nacional, who seemed 
even more grave and solemn in the presence of the en- 
emy. The picadores, Potaje and Tragabuches, lusty ag- 


fuse] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


gressive fellows, lovers of riots and fights who felt a 
decided aversion to the ecclesiastical dress, urged him 
on in a loud voice. 

“There’s thy chance! Go at him for the good cause! 
Lodge one of thy yarns in the nape of his neck.” 

The maestro, with all his authority as chief of cuadrilla, 
against which none may parley nor argue, rolled his eyes, 
and. looked at Nacional, who maintained a silent obe- 
dience. But stronger than duty was the impulse of his 
simple soul to convert, and an insignificant word was 
enough to open a discussion with the travellers, to try 
‘ to convince them of the truth; and the truth was for him 
a kind of confused and disordered remnant of arguments 
learned from Don Joselito. 

His comrades looked at each other astonished at the 
wisdom of their companion, well pleased that one of 
, them should face professional people and put them in a 
tight place, for they were almost invariably priests of 
little learning. And the holy men, astounded at Na- 
cional’s confused reasoning and the smiles of the other 
bull-fighters, finally resorted to an extreme measure. 
Did men who continually exposed their lives to peril 
take no thought of God and believe in such things as he 
said? At this very moment how their wives and mothers 
must be praying for them! 

The men of the cuadrilla grew serious, thinking with © 
timorous gravity of the scapularies and medallions fem- 
inine hands had sewed to their fighting garments before 
they left Seville. The matador, his sleeping superstition 
aroused, was angry with Nacional, as though in this 
lack of piety he foresaw danger to his life. 

“ Keep still and don’t talk any more of your crudities. 


[ 112 ] 


THE LURE OF GOLDEN HAIR 


Pardon, Sefiores! He is a good man but his head has 
been turned by so many lies. Shut up and don’t give me 
any impertinence. Damn it all!” 

And Gallardo, to tranquillize these gentlemen whom he 
believed to be trustees of the future, overwhelmed the 
banderillero with threats and curses. 

Nacional took refuge in disdainful silence. All igno- 
rance and superstition! All from lack of knowing how to 
read and write! And firm in his beliefs, with the sim- 
plicity of a man who possesses only two or three ideas and 
will not let go of them, he took up the discussion again 
in a few hours—paying no heed to the anger of the 
matador. 

He carried his impiety even into the midst of the ring, 
among peones and pikemen who, after having said a 
prayer in the chapel of the plaza, went into the arena 
with the hope that the sacred emblems sewed to their , 
clothing would deliver them from danger. 

When the time came to stick the barbs into some enor- 
mous bull of great weight, thick neck, and deep black 
color, Nacional stood up before him with his arms ex- 
tended and the barbs in his hands, shouting insults at him: 

“Come on, you old priest!” 

The “ priest ” dashed forward furiously, and as he ap- 
proached, Nacional lodged the banderillas in the nape of 
his neck with all his strength, saying in a loud voice, as 
if he had gained a victory: 

“For the clergy!” 

Gallardo ended by laughing at WNacional’s_ ex- 
travagances. 

“Thou makest me ridiculous. Our cuadrilla will be 
branded as a herd of heretics. Thou knowest that some 


[ 113 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


audiences don’t like that. The bull-fighter should only 
fight bulls.” 

Nevertheless, he loved his banderillero, mindful of his 
attachment which had sometimes risen to the point of 
sacrifice. Nacional cared not if he were hissed when he 
lodged the banderillas carelessly in dangerous bulls as a 
result of his desire to get through quickly. He cared 
nothing for glory and only fought bulls for his wage. 
But the moment Gallardo walked sword in hand toward 
a treacherous bull the banderillero kept near him, ready to 
aid him with his heavy cape and his strong arm which 
had humbled the necks of so many wild beasts. Twice 
when Gallardo rolled on the sand, nearly caught by the 
dagger-like horns, Nacional threw himself upon the ani- 
mal forgetting his wife, his children, his little tavern, 
everything, ready to die to save his maesiro. He was 


«» received in Gallardo’s dining-room in the evenings, there- 


fore, as though he were a member of the family. 

Gallardo and Don José, who sat across the table smok- 
ing, the glass of cognac within reach of the hand, liked 
to start Nacional to talking so as to laugh at his ideas, 
and they teased him by insulting Don Joselito—a liar 
who turned the heads of the ignorant! 

The banderillero took the jokes of the swordsman and 
his manager calmly. Doubt Don Joselito? Such an ab- 
surdity could not move him—no more than if they 
should attack his other idol, Gallardo, telling him he did 
not know how to kill a bull. 

But when the leather-worker, who inspired him with 
an irresistible aversion, began to joke him he lost com- 
posure. Who was that hungry fellow who lived by hang- 


[ 114 ] 


THE LURE OF GOLDEN HAIR 


ing onto his master, to dare to dispute him! And losing 
self-command, forgetting the presence of the master’s 
wife and mother and of Encarnacié6n, who, imitating her 
husband, curled her be-whiskered lip and looked scorn- 
fully at the banderillero, he rushed down grade into an ex- 
position of his views with the same fervor with which he 
discoursed in the committee. For lack of better argu- 
ments he overwhelmed the ideas of the jokers with 
insults, 

“The Bible? Liquid! That nonsense about creation 
of the world in six days? Liquid! That about Adam and 
Eve? Liquid, also! All lies and superstition.” 

And the word liquid, applied to whatever he believed 
false or insignificant, fell from his lips as a strong ex- 
pression of scorn. ‘“ That about Adam and Eve” was 
for him a subject of sarcasm. How could all human be- 
ings be descendants from one pair only?. 

“My name is Sebastian Venegas; and thou, Juaniyo, 
thy name is Gallardo; and you, Don José, have your sur- 
name; and every one has his own, only those of the par- 
ents being alike. If we were all grandchildren of Adam, 
and Adam, for example, was named Pérez, we would all 
have Pérez for asurname. Is that clear? But every one 
of us has his own because there were many Adams and 
what the priests tell is all liquid! Superstition and igno- 
rance! We lack education and they deceive us; I think 
I explain myself.” | 

Gallardo, throwing himself back with laughter, saluted 
his banderillero, imitating the bellowing of a bull. The 
business manager, with Andalusian gravity, offered him 
his hand, congratulating him. 


[115 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


“Shake, old boy! Thou hast done well! Not even 
Castelar could have done better!” 

Sefiora Angustias was indignant at hearing such things 
in her house, horrified with the terror of an old woman 
who sees the end of her existence drawing near. 

“Shut up, Sebastian; shut thy big, wicked mouth, lost 
soul, or into the street thou goest! Thou shalt not say 
those things here, thou devil! If I did not know thee — 
If I did not know that thou art a good man—” 

Finally she became reconciled to the banderillero, re- 
membering how much he loved her Juan and what he 
had done for him in moments of danger. Moreover, it 
gave her and Carmen great ease of mind to know that 
this serious man of decent habits worked in the cuadrilla 
by the side of the other “boys” and of the matador him- 
self, who, when he was alone, was excessively gay in 
' disposition and let himself be carried away by the de- 
sire to be admired by women. 

The enemy of the clergy and of Adam and Eve guarded 
a secret of his maestro, however, that made him reserved 
and grave when he saw him at home with his mother 
and Sefiora Carmen. If these women knew what he 
knew! 

In spite of the respect which every banderillero should 
show his matador Nacional had dared one day to talk to 
Gallardo with rough frankness, relying on his years and 
on their old friendship. 

“Be careful, Juaniyo, for everybody in Seville knows 
the whole story! They talk of nothing else and the news 
is going to reach your house and there’ll be such a riot 
it’ll set fire to the hair of God himself— Don’t 
forget about that affair with the singing girl; and that 


[ 116 ] 


THE LURE OF GOLDEN HAIR 


“ 
was nothing! This creature is more forceful and more 
dangerous.” 

“But what creature is that? And what riots are those 
thou art talking about?” 

“Who can it be? Dofia Sol; that great lady who 
makes so much talk. The niece of the Marquis of Mo- 
raima, the cattle-breeder.” 

And as the swordsman was smiling and silent, flattered 
by Nacional’s exact information, the latter continued 
with the air of a preacher proclaiming the vanities of this 
world, “The married man should above all things seek 
the tranquillity of his house. Women! Liquid! They 
are all alike and it is nonsense to embitter one’s life 
jumping from one to another. I am a married man and 
in the twenty-four years I have lived with my Teresa I 
have never been faithless to her even in thought, al- 


though I am a bull-fighter; and I had my day and more + 


than one lass has cast tender eyes at me.” 

Gallardo burst out laughing at his banderillero. He 
talked like a father-superior. And was this the same 
man that wanted to eat the priests up raw? 

“ Nacional, don’t be hard on me. Every one is what 
he is and since the women come, let them come. What 
does one live for? Any day he may go out of the ring 
foot foremost. Besides, thou knowest nothing of the 
affair, nor what a lady is. If thou couldst see that 
woman!” 

Then he ingenuously added, as if he wished to counter- 
act the expression of scandal and sadness engraved on 
Nacional’s countenance: 

“TI love Carmen very much, dost thou understand? I 
love her as well as ever; but the other I love too. That 


[ 117 ] 


, 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


is different. I don’t know how to explain it to thee. 
That ’s another matter. Drop it!” 

And the banderillero could make no further headway in 
his expostulation with Gallardo. 

Months before, when with the autumn came the end 
of the bull-fighting season, the swordsman had had an 
adventure at the Church of San Lorenzo. He was resting 
in Seville a few days before going to La Rinconada with 
his family. To kill more than a hundred bulls a year with 
all the danger and strain of the contest did not weary him 
so much as the ceaseless travel from one end of Spain to 
the other during a period of several months. These jour- 
neys were made in mid-summer, under a blistering sun, 
over parched plains and in old cars whose roofs seemed 
to be on fire. The water-jar belonging to the cuadrilla, 
filled at every station, was not enough to quench the 
thirst. Moreover, the trains ran crowded with passen- 
gers — people going to the fairs in the cities to see the 
bull-fights. Often Gallardo, for fear of missing the train, 
killed his last bull in one plaza, and, still dressed in his 
fighting costume, rushed to the train, passing like a me- 
teor of light and color among the groups of travellers 
and baggage trucks, and changed his clothes in a first- 
class compartment under the gaze of the passengers, who 
were glad to travel with a celebrity. 

When he arrived, worn-out, at some city where the 
streets were in festal array, decorated with banners and 
arches, he had to endure the torment of enthusiastic 
adoration. The connoisseurs and his personal adherents 
met him at the station and accompanied him to his hotel. 
They were well-rested and happy folk who grasped him 
by the hand and expected to find him expansive and 


[ 118 ] 


+cat 


THE LURE OF GOLDEN HAIR 


loquacious, as though on meeting them he must perforce 
experience the greatest pleasure. 

Frequently a single corrida was not all. He had to 
fight bulls three or four days in succession, and when 
night came, exhausted from weariness and lack of sleep 
on account of his recent excitement, he gave up all social 
affairs and sat at the door of the hotel in his shirt-sleeves, 
enjoying the fresh air of the street. The “boys” of the 
cuadrilla lodged at the same inn and kept near ‘the maestro, 
like a brotherhood in a cloister. Some of the most auda- 
cious would ask permission to take a walk along the illu- 
minated streets and out to the fair grounds. 

“Miuras to-morrow!” said the matador, “I know 
what those walks are. Thou wilt return at day-break 
with two glasses too many and thou ’lt not fail to have 
some kind of an affair to take thy strength. No; thou 
canst not go. When we get through thou mayest play.” 

And the work over, if there were a few days of liberty 
before the next corrida in some other city, the cuadrilla 
would put off the trip, and then the gay time would be- 
gin, far from the restraint of their families, with abun- 
dance of wine and women in company with enthusiastic 
devotees, who imagined this to be the everyday life of 
their idols. 

The divers dates of the fiestas obliged the swordsman 
to take absurd journeys. He would leave one city to 
work in the other extreme of Spain, and four days later 
he would return, fighting bulls in a town near the first 
one. He almost spent the summer months, when corridas 
were most frequent, in the train, making a continual zig- 
zag over all the railroads of the Peninsula, killing bulls 
in the plazas, and sleeping on the cars. 


[119 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


“If all my summer travel were arranged in a straight 
line,” said Gallardo, “it would sure reach to the North 
Pole.” 

At the beginning of the season he started on his trav- 
els with enthusiasm, thinking of the multitude that 
talked of him throughout the whole year, impatiently 
awaiting his coming; he thought of the unforeseen events ; 
of the adventures that feminine curiosity would fre- 
quently yield him; of the life from hotel to hotel, with 
its changes, its annoyances, its varied meals, that con- 
trasted strongly with the placid existence in Seville and 
the days of mountain solitude at La Rinconada. But af- 
ter a few weeks of this giddy life, in which he earned five 
thousand pesefas for each afternoon of work, Gallardo be- 
gan to lament, like a child far from its family. 

“Ah! My cool house in Seville! Poor Carmen who 
keeps it shining like a little silver cup! Ah! Mamitia’s 
cooking! So rich!” 

He only forgot Seville on holiday nights, when he did 
not have to fight bulls the following day; when all the 
cuadrilla, surrounded by devotees anxious to give them a 
good impression of the city, gathered at a café flamenco 
where women and songs were all for the maestro. 

When Gallardo went home to recuperate during the 
remainder of the year he felt the satisfaction of the mighty 
who, forgetting honors, give themselves up to the com- 
forts of ordinary life. 

He slept late, free from the tyranny of train schedules 
and unstirred by any emotion when he thought of bulls. 
Nothing to do this day, nor the next, nor the next! His 
travel ended at Sierpes Street, or the plaza of San Fer- 
nando. The family seemed changed, happier and in 


[ 120 ] 





THE LURE OF GOLDEN HAIR 


better health, having him safe at home for a few months. 
He went out with his hat on the back of his head, twirl- 
ing his gold-headed cane and admiring the big brilliants 
on his fingers. In the vestibule some men were waiting 
for him,—sun-browned men with a sour, sweaty, 
stench, wearing dirty blouses and broad hats with ragged 
rims. Some were field laborers out on a tramp, who 
thought it quite natural on passing through Seville to 
obtain help from the famous matador whom they called 
Sefior Juan. Others lived in the city, and thou-ed the 
bull-fighter, calling him Juaniyo. 

Gallardo, with a memory for faces characteristic of a 
public man, recognized them and permitted their famil- 
iarity. They were comrades of his few school days or 
his youthful vagabondage. 

“Business not going well, eh? Times are hard for 
everybody.” 

And before this friendliness could encourage them to 
greater intimacy he turned to Garabato who stood hold- 
ing the gate open. 

“Tell the sefora to give thee a couple of pesetas for 
each one.” 

Then he went out into the street whistling, pleased 
with his generosity and the beauty of his life. He was 
detained on the next block by a couple of old women, 
friends of his mother, who asked him to stand as god- 
father to the grandchild of one of them. Her poor 
daughter was about to become a mother at any moment; 
her son-in-law, an ardent Gallardist, had come to blows 
_ several times going out of the plaza in defence of his 
idol but dared not speak to him. 

“But, damn it! Do you take me for the director of an 


[ 121 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


orphan asylum? I’ve got more godchildren than there 
are in the poor-house.” 

To rid himself of them he told them to see his mamita. 
Whatever she said should stand! And he went on, not 
stopping until he reached Sierpes Street, bowing to some 
and giving others the honor of walking at his side in 
glorious intimacy before the gaze of the passersby. 

He looked in at the Forty-five Club, to see if his mana- 
ger were there. This was an aristocratic society of a 
limited membership, as its title indicated, in which the 
talk was only of bulls and horses. It was composed of 
gentlemen-amateurs and cattle-breeders, the Marquis of 
Moraima figuring preéminently, like an oracle. 

On one of these walks, one afternoon, Gallardo found 
himself sauntering along Sierpes Street, and took a no- 
tion to enter the parish chapel of San Lorenzo. In the 
little square before it stood luxurious carriages. On this 
day the best families were wont to pray to the miracu- 
lous image of Our Lord Jesus of the Great Power. La- 
dies stepped out of the coaches, dressed in black, with 
rich mantillas; and men went into the church attracted by 
the feminine assemblage. 

Gallardo entered also. A bull-fighter must take advan- 
tage of opportunities to rub elbows with persons of high 
position. The son of Sefiora Angustias felt the pride of 
a conqueror when rich gentlemen bowed to him and ele- 
gant ladies murmured his name, turning their eyes upon 
him. Moreover, he was a devotee of the Lord of the 
Great Power. He tolerated in Nacional his opinions on 
“God or Nature” without being much shocked, for the 
Divinity meant for him something vague and indefinite, 
like the existence of a great lord about whom one might 


[ 122 ] 





aS eee ee Oe 


THE LURE OF GOLDEN HAIR 


listen calmly to all kinds of blasphemy, because he is 
only known by hearsay. But the Virgin of Hope and 
Jesus of the Great Power he had been accustomed to 
seeing since his earliest years, and these must not be 
maligned. The susceptibilities of the lusty youth were 
touched by the theatrical agony of the Christ with the 
cross on his back, the sweaty countenance, painful and 
livid like that of comrades he had seen stretched out in 
the infirmaries of the bull-plazas. He must be on good 
terms with this powerful lord and he fervently uttered 
several pater-nosters, standing before the image, with 
the candles like red stars reflected in the corneas of his 
Moorish eyes. 

A movement among the women kneeling before him 
distracted his attention, which had been absorbed in a 
plea for supernatural intervention whenever his life 
should be in danger. 

A lady passed among the worshippers, attracting their 
notice; she was a tall, slender woman, of astounding 
beauty, dressed in light colors and wearing a great hat 
with plumes beneath which shone the luminous gold of 
her abundant hair. 

Gallardo knew her. It was Dojia Sol, the Marquis 
of Moraima’s niece, the “ Ambassadress,” as they called 
her in Seville. She passed among the women paying no 
attention to their movements of curiosity, satisfied to win 
their glances and to hear the murmur of their words as 
though this were a natural homage that should follow 
her appearance in any public place. The foreign ele- 
gance of her dress and her enormous hat were outlined 
in their showy splendor against the dark mass of fem- 
inine toilettes. She knelt, inclined her head as if in 


[ 123 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


prayer for a few moments, and then her light eyes of 
greenish blue, with their reflections of gold, roved about 
the temple tranquilly as though she were in a theatre 
examining the audience, searching for familiar faces. 
Those eyes seemed to smile when they encountered the 
face of a friend and persisted in their roving until they 
met Gallardo’s, which were fixed upon her. The matador 
was not modest. Accustomed to being himself the ob- 
ject of contemplation of thousands and thousands of per- 
sons on bull-fight afternoons, he might well believe that, 
wherever he was, the looks of all must of course be meant 
for him. Many women, in hours of confidence, had re- 
vealed to him their emotion, the curiosity and desire they 
felt on seeing him for the first time in the ring. Dofia 
Sol’s gaze did not fall as it met the bull-fighter’s; instead 
it remained fixed, with the frigidity of a great lady, 
obliging the matador, ever respectful to the rich, to turn 
his eyes away. 

“What a woman!” thought Gallardo, with the petu- 
lance of a popular idol. “Can that gachi be for me?” 

Outside of the church he felt a desire to wait, and he 
remained near the door. His heart warned him of some- 
thing extraordinary, as on afternoons when good for- 
tune was coming. It was that mysterious presentiment 
which in the ring made him deaf to the protests of the 
public, throwing himself headlong into the greatest dan- 
gers, and always with excellent results. When she came 
out of the church she again looked at him strangely, as 
if she had guessed that he would be waiting for her. She 
stepped into an open carriage accompanied by two 
friends, and when the coachman drove away she still 
turned her head to see the bull-fighter, a faint smile on 
her lips. 


~ [124] 


et 





THE LURE OF GOLDEN HAIR 


Gallardo was distracted the remainder of the after- 
noon —thinking of his former love affairs, of the 
triumphs of admiration and curiosity that his bull- 
fighter’s arrogance had won for him; conquests that filled 
him with pride and made him think himself irresistible, 
but which now inspired him with a kind of shame. A 
woman like that, a great lady, who had travelled about 
the world and lived in Seville like an unthroned queen! 
That would be a conquest! To his admiration of beauty 
was united a certain reverence derived from ancient 
servitude, of respect for the rich in a country where birth 
and fortune possess great importance. If he should 
manage to claim the attention of that woman, what a 
tremendous triumph! 


[ 125] 


CHAPTER VI 
THE VOICE OF THE SIREN 


ON JOSE, firm friend of the Marquis of Moraima, 
and related to the best families of Seville, had 
often talked to Gallardo concerning Dojia Sol. 

She had returned to Seville only a few months before, 
arousing the enthusiasm of the young people. She came, 
after a long absence in foreign lands, eager for every- 
thing pertaining to la tierra, enjoying the popular customs 
and finding it all very interesting, “very artistic.” She 
went to the bull-fights arrayed in the ancient costume of 
a maja, imitating the dress and pose of the beautiful 
women painted by Goya. Strong, accustomed to sports, 
and a great horsewoman, the people saw her galloping 
around the outskirts of Seville, wearing with her black 
riding skirt a man’s jacket, a red cravat, and a white 
beaver hat perched on top of her golden hair. Sometimes 
she carried a spear across the pommel of the saddle and 
with a party of friends converted into piqueros, she went 
to the pasture grounds to tease and upset bulls, enjoying 
this wild festivity, abounding as it did in danger. She 
was not a child. Gallardo had a confused recollection of 
having seen her in his youth on the paseo of Delicias, 
seated beside her mother and covered with white frills, 
like a luxurious doll in a show-case, while he, a miserable 
vagabond, dashed under the wheels of the carriage in 
search of cigar stubs. They were undoubtedly the same 


[ 126 ] 











THE VOICE OF THE SIREN 


age,— she must be at the end of the twenties; but how 
magnificent! So different from other women! She 
seemed like an exotic bird, a bird of paradise, fallen into 
a farmyard among mere shiny, well fed hens. 

Don José knew her history. An eccentric mind had 
Dojfia Sol! Her mother was dead and she had a consider- 
able fortune. She had married in Madrid a certain man 
older than herself, who offered to a woman eager for: 
splendor and novelty the advantages of travelling about 
the world as the wife of an ambassador who represented 
Spain at the principal courts. 

“The way that girl has amused herself, Juan!” said 
the manager. “The heads she has turned in ten 
years from one end of Europe to the other! She must be 
a regular geography with secret notes at the foot of each 
page. Surely she cannot look at the map without mak- 
ing a little cross of memory near all the great capitals. 
And the poor ambassador! He died, of despondency, 
~ no doubt, because there was no longer any place to which 
he could be sent. The good gentleman, accredited to rep- 
resent our country, would go to a court and inside of a 
year, behold! the queen or the empress of that land was: 
writing to Spain asking the minister to retire the ambas- 
sador and his dreaded consort, whom the newspapers 
called ‘the irresistible Spanish woman.’ The crowned 
heads that gachi has turned! Queens trembled when they 
saw her come, as if she were the Asiatic cholera. At 
last the poor ambassador saw no other place for his tal- 
ents but the republics of America, but as he was a gen- 
tleman of good principles and the friend of kings, he pre- 
ferred to die. And don’t think that the girl contented 
herself only with personages who eat and dance in royal 


[ 127 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


palaces. Not if what they say be true! That child is all 
extremes; it is all or nothing! She will as soon go 
after one that digs in the ground as the highest above it. 
I have heard that there in Russia she was running after 
one of those bushy-haired fellows that throw bombs, a 
youth with a woman’s face, who paid no attention to her 
because she disturbed him in his business. But the girl 
kept chasing and chasing after him until finally they 
hung him. They say, too, that she had an affair with a 
painter in Paris, and they even say he painted her in the 
nude, with one arm over her face so as not to be recog- 
nized, and that the picture travels around that way on 
match-boxes. That must be false; an exaggeration! 
What seems more certain is that she was the great friend 
of a German, a musician—one of those who write 
operas. If thou couldst hear her play the piano! And 
when she sings! Just like one of those singers that come 
to the theatre of San Fernando in the Easter season. 
And think not that she sings in Italian only; she talks 
anything — French, German, English. Her uncle, the 
Marquis of Moraima, when he talks about her at the 
Forty-five says he has his suspicions that she speaks 
Latin. What a woman! Eh, Juanillo? bi oi an inter- 
esting creature! 

“In Seville,” he went on, “she leads an exemplary 
life. On that account I think what they tell of her for- 
eign affairs may be false; lies of certain young cocks that 
go for grapes and find them sour.” 

And laughing at the spirit of this woman, who at times 
was as bold and as aggressive as a man, he repeated the 
rumors that had circulated in certain clubs on Sierpes 
Street. When the “ Ambassadress ” came to live in Se- 
ville, all the young people had formed a court around her. 


[ 128 ] 


THE VOICE OF THE SIREN 


“Imagine, Juanillo, an elegant woman, different from 
those around here, bringing her clothes and hats from 
Paris, her perfume from London; besides being a 
friend of kings, branded with the brand of the finest 
stock in Europe, so to speak. They followed in her wake 
like mad men, and the girl permitted them certain liber- 
ties, wanting to live among them like a man. But some 
of them transgressed the bounds, mistaking familiarity 
for something else, and, at a loss for words, they made 
too free with their hands. Then there were blows, Juan, 
and something worse. That young lady is dangerous. 
It seems that she shoots at a mark, that she knows how 
to box like an English sailor, and knows besides, that 
Japanese way of fighting that they call jitsu. To sum it 
all up, if a Christian dares to give her a pinch, she, with 
her dainty little fists, without even getting angry, will 
grasp thee and leave thee torn to shreds. Now they at- 
tack her less, but she has enemies who go about talking 
evil of her; some praising what is a lie, others even de- 
nying that she is clever.” 

Dona Sol, according to the manager, was enthusiastic 
over life in Seville. After a long sojourn in cold, foggy 
lands she admired the intensely blue sky and the winter 
sun of soft gold, and she discoursed on the sweetness of 
life in this country — so picturesque! 

“The simplicity of our customs fills her with enthu- 
siam. She is like one of those English women that come 
in Holy Week —as if she had not been born in Seville; 
as if she saw it for the first time! They say she spends 
her summers in foreign cities and her winters here. She 
is tired of her life in palaces and courts, and if thou didst 
but see the people she goes with! She has made them 
receive her like a sister in the convent of Cristo de Triana 


[ 129 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


and that of the Most Holy Cachorro, and she has spent 
a pot of money on wine for the brotherhood. Some 
nights she fills her house with guitarists and dancers, 
for so many girls in Seville are good singers and dancers. 
With them go their teachers and their families, even to 
their most distant relatives; they all stuff themselves 
with olives, sausages, and wine, and Dofia Sol, seated in 
a big chair like a queen, spends the hours demanding 
dance after dance, all which must be native to the coun- 
try. They say this is a diversion equal to that which 
was given to I don’t know what king, who had operas 
sung for himself alone. Her servants, foreign fellows 
that. have come with her, long-faced and serious as par- 
rots, go about in their evening dress with great trays, 
passing glasses to the dancers who in plain sight box 
their ears and snap olive stones in their eyes. Most hon- 
est and diverting games! Now, Dojfia Sol receives Le- 
chuzo in the mornings, an old gypsy who gives guitar 
lessons, master of the purest style; and when her vis- 
itors don’t find her with the instrument on her lap, she 
is with an orange in her hand. The oranges that crea- 
ture has eaten since she came! And still she isn’t 
satisfied!” 

Thus continued Don José, explaining to his matador 
the eccentricities of Dofia Sol. 

Four days after Gallardo had seen her in the parish 
church of San Lorenzo, the manager approached the 
matador in a café on Sierpes Street with an air of mystery. 

“ Gaché, thou art a child of good fortune. Knowest 
who has been talking to me about thee?” 

And putting his mouth close to the bull-fighter’s ear 
he whispered, “ Dona Sol!” 


[ 130 ] 


THE VOICE OF THE SIREN 


She had asked him about his matador, and expressed a 
desire to meet him. She was such an original type! So 
Spanish! 

“She says she has seen thee kill several times, once in 
Madrid and again, I know not where. She has applauded 
thee. She recognizes that thou are very brave. What 
if she should take up with thee! Imagine it! What an 
honor! Thou wouldst be a brother-in-law, or something 
like that, of all the high-toned fellows on the European 
calendar of swells.” 

Gallardo smiled modestly, lowering his eyes, but at 
the same time he twisted his handsome person proudly 
as if he did not consider his manager’s hypothesis either 
difficult or extraordinary. 

“But do not form illusions, Juanillo,” continued he; 
“ Dofia Sol wishes to study a bull-fighter at close range, 
with the same interest that she takes lessons from the 
master Lechuzo. Local color and nothing more! ‘ Bring 
him day after to-morrow to Tablada,’ she told me. Thou 
knowest what that will be —a baiting of the cattle of the 
Moraima herd; an entertainment the Marquis has gotten 
up to divert his niece. We will go; she has invited me 
also.” 

Two days later, in the afternoon, the maesiro and his 
manager started from the ward of the Feria like gentle- 
men picadores, eagerly watched by the people who peeped 
out of the doors and stood in groups on the sidewalks. 

“They are going to Tablada,” they said. “There is to 
be a bull-baiting.” 

The manager, mounted on a large-boned mare, was 
in the dress of the country, short jacket, cloth trousers 
with yellow gaiters, and leather leggings. The swordts- 


[ 131 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


man had arrayed himself for the event in his usual 
bizarre dress of the ancient bull-fighters, before modern 
fashion had levelled their apparel to that of other mortals. 
A crush hat of velvet with a plaited band was held on 
by a chin-strap; the collar of the shirt, innocent of cravat, 
was fastened with a pair of brilliants and two iarger 
ones sparkled on the undulating bosom; the jacket and 
waistcoat were of wine-colored velvet with black loops 
and hangings; lastly there was a red silk belt and tight 
knee-breeches of dark mixed weave bound at the knees 
with garters of black braid. His leggings were amber- 
colored, with leather fringes along the side, and boots of 
the same color, half hidden in the wide Moorish stirrups, 
exposed to view great silver spurs. Over the saddle- 
horn, on top of the gay Jerez blanket whose tassels hung 
on both sides of the horse, lay a gray jacket with black 
trimmings and red lining. 

The two horsemen rode at a gallop, carrying on their 
shoulders javelins made of fine elastic wood, with balls 
on the end to guard the tip. Their passage through the 
populous ward aroused an ovation. Hurrah! The wo- 
men waved their hands. 

“God be with you, Sefiores! Amuse yourself, Sefior 
Juan!” ; 

They spurred their horses to escape from the crowd 
of youngsters that ran after them, and the narrow lanes 
with their blue pavements and white walls rang with 
the rhythmic beat of the horseshoes. 

On the quiet street of manorial houses with massive 
grilled gates and great balconies, where Dofia Sol lived, 
they met other riders before the door, sitting on their 
horses, leaning on their lances. They were young gen- 


[ 132 ] 


THE VOICE OF THE SIREN 


tlemen, relatives or friends of the lady, who greeted the 
bull-fighter with amiable familiarity, happy to have him 
in the party. The Marquis of Moraima came out of the 
house and immediately mounted his horse. . 

“The child will be down immediately. Everybody 
knows the women — how long they take to get ready.” 

He said this with the sententious gravity that he gave 
to all his words, as if he were uttering oracles. He was 
a tall, big-boned old man, with long white whiskers in 
the midst of which his mouth and eyes preserved an in- 
fantile ingenuousness. Courteous and measured in his 
speech, genteel in manner, moderate in his smile, the 
Marquis of Moraima was a fine gentleman of the type of 
by-gone days. He was dressed almost always in riding 
clothes, hating the city life, bored by the social demands 
of his family when detained by them in Seville, and eager 
to fly to the country among shepherd-foremen and cat- 
tlemen, whom he treated with the familiarity of com- 
rades. He had almost forgotten how to write, from lack 
of practice, but as soon as the talk turned to cattle, to the 
raising of bulls and horses, or to agriculture, his eyes 
shone and he expressed himself with the skill of one 
deeply learned. 

The sunlight clouded. The golden glow on the white 
walls on one side of the street grew pale. People looked 
aloft. Along the blue belt between the two rows of 
eaves, a dark cloud passed. 

“ There is no danger,” said the Marquis gravely. “As 
I came out of the house I saw a bit of paper which 
the wind blew in a direction I understand. It will not 
rain.” 

All were convinced. It could not rain since the Mar- 


[ 133 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


quis of Moraima so declared. He was as weather-wise as 
an old shepherd; there was no fear of his being mistaken. 

Then he faced Gallardo. 

“This year I am going to provide for thee some mag- 
nificent corridas. What bulls! We shall see if thou send- 
est them to death like good Christians. Thou knowest 
that this year I have not been quite satisfied. The poor 
things deserved better.” 

Dofia Sol appeared, holding up her black riding-skirt 
in one hand and showing beneath it the tops of her high 
gray leather boots. She wore a man’s shirt with a red 
tie, a jacket and waistcoat of violet velvet, a velvet three- 
cornered hat gracefully tipped to one side over her curls. 
She mounted her horse with ease, in spite of the abun- 
dant plumpness of her well-developed form, and took her 
javelin from a servant’s hands. She greeted her friends, 
excusing her tardiness, while her eyes travelled toward 
Gallardo. The manager spurred his mare closer to make 
the presentation, but Dofia Sol, drawing near, rode up 
to the bull-fighter. 

Gallardo was disturbed at her presence. What a wo- 
man! What should he say to her? 

He saw that she extended him her hand, a fine hand 
that was gloriously fragrant, and in his perturbation he 
could only press it with his great fingers that better knew 
how to throw wild beasts. But the delicate and rosy 
palm, instead of cringing under the involuntary and 
brutal pressure that would have drawn from another a 
shriek of pain, tightened its muscles with vigorous force, 
freeing itself easily from his clasp. 

“TI am most grateful to you for having come, and I am 
charmed to meet you.” 


[ 134 ] 





THE VOICE OF THE SIREN 


And Gallardo, feeling in his confusion the necessity of 
answering something, stammered, as if he were greeting 
a devotee: 

“Thanks. The family well?” 

Dofia Sol’s discreet laugh was lost in the noise of the 
horseshoes that resounded on the stones with the first 
movement of the cavalcade. The lady put her horse to 
a trot and the whole troop followed, forming an escort 
around her. Gallardo, abashed, travelled in the rear, not 
recovering from his stupefaction, and vaguely guessing 
that he had said something foolish. 

They galloped along the outskirts of Seville beside 
the river; they left behind them the Tower of Gold; they 
followed shady avenues of yellow sand and then a high- 
road beside which stood inns and lunch-booths. 

As they drew near Tablada they saw, on the green ex- 
panse of plain, a dark mass of people and carriages near 
the palisade that separated the pasture from the en- 
closure containing the cattle. 

The Guadalquivir swept its current through the length 
of the pasture-grounds. On the opposite bank rose the 
hill called San Juan de Aznalfarache, crowned by a 
ruined castle. The country houses loomed white against 
the silver gray masses of the olive groves. On the op- 
posite wing of the extended horizon, against a blue back- 
ground on which floated fleecy clouds, was Seville, its 
houses dominated by the imposing mass of the cathedral 
and the marvellous Giralda, a tender rose-color in the 
afternoon light. 

The riders advanced with much care through the dense 
crowd. The curiosity which Dojfia Sol’s eccentricities 
inspired had attracted nearly all the ladies of Seville. 


[ 135 ] 


» 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Her friends bowed to her from their carriages, thinking 
her most beautiful in her mannish costume. Her rela- 
tives, the daughters of the Marquis, some unmarried, 
others accompanied by their husbands, cautioned her to 
prudence. “For mercy’s sake, Sol! Don’t do crazy 
things! ” 

The bull-baiters entered the enclosure, welcomed as 
they passed through the palisade by the applause of the 
common people who had come to the festivity. The 
horses, scenting the enemy, and seeing them in the dis- 
tance, rose on their hind legs and began to prance and 
neigh, held in by the firm hand of the riders. 

The bulls were grouped in the centre of the enclosure. 
Some were quietly feeding, some were lying on the red- 
dish green winter field. Others, more rebellious, trotted 
toward the river, and the older bulls, the trained leaders, 
ran after them, ringing the bells that hung around their 
necks, while the cow-boys helped them in this rounding 
up, slinging well-aimed stones that struck the horns of 
the fugitives. The horsemen remained motionless a long 
time, as if holding council before the eager gaze of the 
public awaiting something extraordinary. 

The first to start was the Marquis, accompanied by 
one of his friends. The two riders galloped toward the 
group of bulls and reined in their horses when near 
them, standing in their stirrups, waving their javelins 
in the air, and making loud outcries to frighten them. 
A black bull with strong legs separated from the band, 
running toward the end of the enclosure. 

The Marquis was justly proud of his herd, which was 
composed of fine selected animals. They were not oxen 
destined to the production of meat, with filthy, loose, 


[ 136 ] 








THE VOICE OF THE SIREN 


and wrinkled hide, nor with broad hoofs, nor drooping 
head, nor with big ill-placed horns. These were animals 
of nervous vigor, strong and heavy enough to make the 
earth tremble, raising a cloud of dust beneath their feet; 
their hide was fine and glossy like that of a thoroughbred 
horse, their eyes flashed, their neck was thick and proud, 
and they had short legs, fine delicate tails, slender horns, 
sharp and clean, as if polished by hand, and round and 
small hoofs, so hard sag they cut the grass as though 
made of steel. 

The two horsemen rode behind the black bull, attack- 
ing him on both sides, barring his way when he tried to 
make for the river, until the Marquis, setting spur to his 
mare, gained distance and rode up to the bull, with the 
javelin held before him and, lodging it under his tail, 
managed, with the combined strength of ,his arm and 
horse, to make the beast lose his equilibrium, rolling him 
on the ground, with his belly up, his horns driven into 
the earth and his four feet in the air. The rapidity and 
ease with which the breeder accomplished this trick pro- 
voked an explosion of enthusiasm from behind the pali- 
sade. Hurrah for the old man! No one understood bulls 
like the Marquis. He managed them as if they were his 
own children, following them from the time of their 
birth in the cow-herd until they went to their death in 
the plazas like heroes worthy a better fate. 

Other horsemen wished to start at once to win the ap- 
plause of the crowd but Moraima held them back, giving 
preference to his niece. If she were determined to try 
her luck it would be better for her to begin now before 
the herd grew ugly with continued attacks. Dofia Sol 
spurred on her horse which was pawing the ground with 


[ 137 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


his fore feet, excited by the presence of the bulls. The 
Marquis desired to accompany her in her race, but she 
objected. No; she would rather have Gallardo, who was 
a bull-fighter. Where was Gallardo? The matador, still 
ashamed of his stupidity, placed himself at the lady’s 
side without a word. The two set out on a gallop toward 
the centre of the drove of bulls. Dofia Sol’s horse reared 
several times, standing almost upright, as if resisting, 
but the strong Amazon forced him to advance. Gal- 
lardo waved his javelin, uttering shouts that were more 
like bellows, just as he did in the ring when he incited 
the beasts to show their mettle. 

It took but little urging to make an animal separate 
from the drove. A white creature with cinnamon-colored 
spots, an enormous sloping neck, and horns of the finest 
point, started out. He ran toward the end of the en- 
closure as if it were his customary haunt, to which he 
was irresistibly drawn by instinct, and Dofia Sol galloped 
after him, followed by the matador. 

“Look out, Sefiora,” called Gallardo. “That bull is 
old and knows the game! Be careful that he doesn’t 
turn on you!” 

When Dofia Sol prepared to achieve the same feat as 
her uncle, reining her horse alongside to thrust her jave- 
lin under the animal’s tail and upset him, he turned as 
if he suspected the danger, planting himself in a threat- 
ening attitude before his pursuers. The horse passed in 
front of the bull, Dofia Sol being unable to rein him in 
on account of his speed, and the beast plunged after him, 
converting the besieger into the besieged. The lady did 
not think of flight. Many thousands of people were 
watching her from a distance. She feared her friends’ 


[ 138 ] 


wee 





_ 


THE VOICE OF THE SIREN 


laughter and the commiseration of the men, so she reined 
in her horse, making him face the bull. She sat with the 
javelin under her arm like a picador, and she thrust it 
into the bull’s neck as he came on bellowing, his head 
down. The great cervix reddened with a stream of 
blood, but the beast continued to advance from mere 
momentum, not feeling that he enlarged the wound, till 
he thrust his horns beneath the horse, shaking him and 
lifting his fore feet off the ground. The Amazon was 
thrown from her saddle while a shout of horror from 
hundreds of throats arose in the distance. The horse, 
freeing himself from the horns, began to run like mad, his 
belly stained with blood, the girths broken, the saddle 
hanging over his back. The bull started to follow him, 
when at that instant something nearer attracted his at- 
tention. It was Dojia Sol, who, instead of lying motion- 
less on the ground, had just arisen, and picking up her 
javelin, placed it bravely under her arm to hold off the 
bull again. It was mad arrogance, due to her conscious- 
ness of the many who watched her. It was a challenge 
to death rather than yield to cowardice and ridicule. 
They no longer shouted behind the palisade. The 
crowd was motionless with the silence of terror. The 
whole troop of bull-baiters rode up on a mad gallop in 
a cloud of dust, the riders seeming to gain in size at 
every bound. Aid would come too late. The bull pawed 
the ground with his fore feet and lowered his head to at- 
tack the audacious little figure that stood threatening 
him with the lance. One little horn-stab would make an 
end of it! But at the same instant, a fierce bellowing 
distracted the bull’s attention and something red passed 
before his vision like a flame of fire. It was Gallardo, 


[ 139 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


who had thrown himself off his mare, abandoning the 
javelin to grasp the jacket which he carried on the pom- 
mel of his saddle. 

“Aaaa! Come on!” 

The bull came on, running past the red-lined jacket, 
attracted by an adversary worthy of him, and turned 
his hind quarters toward the figure in the black skirt and 
violet bodice, that, in the stupefaction of danger, still 
stood with the lance under her arm. 

“Have no fear, Dofia Sol; he is mine now!” cried the 
bull-fighter, still pale with emotion but smiling, sure of 
his skill. Without other defence than the jacket, he 
fought the beast, drawing him away from the lady and 
escaping from its furious attacks with graceful move- 
ments. 

The crowd, forgetting the recent fright, commenced 
to applaud, enraptured. What joy! To go to a simple 
baiting and to find themselves at an almost formal corrida, 
seeing Gallardo work gratis. 

The bull-fighter, fired by the violence with which the 
brute attacked him, forgot Dofia Sol and every one else, 
intent only on evading his attacks. The bull became fu- 
rious, seeing that the man slipped unharmed from be- 
tween his horns, and fell upon him again, never en- 
countering anything but the brilliant red lining of the 
jacket. 

At last he wearied and stood still, his mouth frothing, 
his head low, his legs trembling; then Gallardo took ad- 
vantage of the brute’s stupefaction and taking off his 
hat touched his head with it. An immense shout arose 
behind the palisade, greeting this heroic exploit. Then 
yells and ringing of bells sounded at Gallardo’s back, 


[ 140 ] 








THE VOICE OF THE SIREN 


cattlemen with lead-bulls appeared and, surrounding the 
animal, drove it slowly toward the thick of the herd. 

Gallardo went in search of his mare, which stood mo- 
tionless, accustomed to being near the bulls. He picked 
up his javelin, mounted, and rode back toward the pali- 
sade at a gentle gallop, prolonging the noisy applause of 
the crowd by this slow riding. The horsemen who had 
taken Dofia Sol away greeted him with wild enthusiasm. 
The manager winked one eye at him, saying myste- 
riously, “ Gachdé, thou hast not been slow. Very good, 
but very good! Now I tell thee that thou It get her.” 

Dofia Sol was in the landau of the Marquis’ daughters, 
outside the palisade. Her cousins surrounded her, 
anxious, feeling her over, almost expecting to find some 
bone broken by her fall. They gave her glasses of man- 
zanilla to help her recover from her fright but she smiled 
with an air of superiority, passively receiving these fem- 
inine demonstrations. 

As she saw Gallardo breaking through the lines of 
people on his horse, amidst waving hats and extended 
hands, the lady smiled yet more brightly. 

“Come here, Cid Campeador. Give me your hand!” 

And again their hands clasped, with a pressure that 
lasted long. 

In the evening, in the house of the matador, this event, 
which was talked about throughout the whole city, was 
commented upon. Sefiora Angustias displayed satisfac- 
tion, just as after a corrida. Her son saving one of those 
senoras on whom she gazed with admiration, habituated 
to reverence by long years of servitude! Carmen re- 
mained silent, scarcely knowing what to think. 

Several days passed without Gallardo’s receiving news 


[ 141 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


from Dojia Sol. The manager was out of the city hunt- 
ing with some friends of the Forty-five. One afternoon, 
near nightfall, Don José sought him in a café on Sierpes 
Street where the connoisseurs met. He had returned 
from the hunt two hours before and had had to go im- 
mediately to Dofia Sol’s house in response to a certain 
note that awaited him at his domicile. 

“But, man alive, thou art worse than a wolf!” said 
the manager, drawing his matador out of the café. “ This 
lady expected thee to go to her house. She has spent 
most of her afternoons at home, thinking thou wouldst 
come any moment. This should n’t be. After my having 
introduced thee, and after all that happened, thou owest 
her a call; a question of asking for her health.” 

The matador stopped in his walk and scratched his head 
beneath his hat. 

“Well, but,” he murmured with indecision, “ well, but 
I am embarrassed. Yes, that is it; yes, sir, embarrassed. 
You know that I have my affairs with women and that 
I know how to say a half dozen words to any common 
gachi; but to this one, no. This is a lady, and when I 
see her I realize that I am rough and coarse, and I keep 
my mouth shut, for I can’t speak without putting my foot 
in it. No, Don José, I am not going. I ought not to 
go.” 

But the manager, sure of convincing him, conducted 
him toward Dofia Sol’s house, talking of his recent in- 
terview with the lady. She showed herself somewhat 
offended by Gallardo’s forgetfulness. The best in Se- 
ville had gone to see her since her accident at Tablada, 
but not he. 

“Thou knowest that a bull-fighter should stand well 


[ 142 ] 





THE VOICE OF THE SIREN 


with the people who are worth while. One must have 
education and show that he is not a herder raised in the 
branding-pen. A lady of so much importance who hon- 
ors thee and expects thee! Come! I will go with thee.” 

“Ah! If you accompany me!” And Gallardo drew a 
deep breath on hearing this, as if he were freed from the 
weight of a great danger. 

They entered Dojia Sol’s house. The courtyard was 
in Moorish style, its many colored arcades of beautiful - 
designs recalling the horseshoe arches of the Alhambra. 
The fountain flowing into a basin where gold-fish were 
swimming sang with sweet monotony in the afternoon 
stillness. In the four surrounding passages with carved 
ceilings separated from the courtyard by the marble 
columns of the arcades, the bull-fighter saw ancient mo- 
saics, time-darkened paintings, images of saints with 
livid countenances, and wood-work worm-eaten as 
though it had been fusilladed with small shot. 

A servant conducted them up the broad marble stair- 
way, and there again the bull-fighter was surprised to 
see paintings on wood of rude figures with a gilded 
background; voluptuous virgins that seemed to be hewn 
out with an axe, with delicate colors and faded gold, 
looted from ancient altars; tapestries of the soft tone of 
dry leaves, bordered with flowers and fruits, some repre- 
senting scenes from Calvary, others full of hairy satyrs 
with hoofs and horns with whom nude girls seemed to 
play as men play with bulls in the ring. 

“How vast is ignorance,” he said to his manager. 
“ And I had thought that all this was only good for con- 
vents. How much these people seem to value it.” 

Gallardo reveived new surprises. He was proud of 


[ 143 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


his own furniture brought from Madrid, all of gaudy 
silk and complicated design, heavy and rich, seeming to 
proclaim, as it were by shouts, the money it had cost, 
but here he was dazzled at the sight of delicate and frag- 
ile chairs, white or green, tables and cupboards of 
simple lines, walls of a single tint with no other orna- 
ment than small paintings separated by great distances, 
and hanging by heavy cords, the whole giving a tone of 
subdued and quiet elegance that seemed the handiwork 
of artists. He was ashamed of his own stupefaction and 
of what he had admired in his house as the supreme of 
luxury. “How vast is ignorance!” And as he seated 
himself he did so with care, fearing lest the chair would 
crumble beneath his weight. 

Dojfia Sol’s presence banished these thoughts. He saw 
her, as he had never before seen her, without manitilla or 
hat, her glossy hair hanging, and seeming to justify her 
romantic name. Her arms, of superlative whiteness, 
escaped from the silken funnels of a Japanese tunic 
crossed over the breast, which left uncovered a space of 
adorable neck, slightly amber-colored, with the lines that 
suggest the neck of the mother Venus. Stones of all 
colors set in rings of strange design covered her fingers 
and scintillated with magic splendor as she moved her 
hands. On her youthful wrists glistened bracelets of 
gold, some of Oriental filigree with mysterious inscrip- 
tions, others massive, from which hung amulets and little 
foreign figures, mementoes of distant travels. She had 
crossed one leg over the other with manlike freedom, and 
on the point of one of her feet dangled a red slipper with 
a high, gilded heel, tiny as a toy, and covered with 
heavy embroidery. 


[ 144 ] 











THE VOICE OF THE SIREN 


Gallardo’s ears buzzed, his vision was clouded, he only 
managed to distinguish a pair of blue eyes fixed on him 
with an expression half caressing, half ironic. To hide 
his emotion, he smiled, showing his teeth,— the expres- 
sionless smile of a child who wishes to be amiable. 

“No, Sefora— many thanks. That amounted to noth- 
ing.” 

Thus he received Dojfia Sol’s expressions of gratitude 
for his heroic feat of the other afternoon. Little by little 
Gallardo began to acquire a certain composure. The 
lady and the manager talked of bulls, and this gave the 
‘swordsman a sudden confidence. She had seen him kill 
several times, and she remembered exactly the principal 
incidents. Gallardo felt pride that this woman had gazed 
upon him at such moments and had even kept fresh the 
memory of his deeds. She opened a lacquer box, deco- 
rated with weird flowers, and offered the men cigarettes 
with golden mouthpieces which exhaled a strange and 
pungent perfume. 

“ They contain opium; they are very agreeable.” 

And she lighted one, following the smoke spirals with 
her greenish eyes which acquired a tremor of liquid gold 
as they refracted the light. The bull-fighter, accustomed 
to the strong Havana tobacco, smoked the cigarette with 
curiosity. Pure straw; a mere treat for ladies. But the 
strange perfume of the smoke slowly overcame his 
timidity. 

Dojfia Sol, looking at him fixedly, asked questions about 
his life. She wished to get a glimpse behind the scenes 
of glory, of the subterranean ways of celebrity, of the 
miserable wandering life of the bull-fighter before he 


gained public acclamation; and Gallardo, with sudden 
é ‘? 
[ 145 ] 


5 


\ 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


confidence, talked and talked, telling of his youthful 
days, dwelling with proud delectation on the lowliness of 
his origin, although omitting all that he considered ques- 
tionable in his eventful adolescence. 

“Very interesting, very original!” said the handsome 
lady, and withdrawing her eyes from the bull-fighter 
they became lost in wandering contemplation, as if fixed 
on something invisible. 

“The greatest man in the world!” exclaimed Don 
José in frank enthusiasm. “Believe me, Sol; there are 
no two youths like this. And the way he recuperates 
from horn-stabs —!” 

Happy in Gallardo’s fortitude, as if he were his pro- 
genitor, he enumerated the wounds he had received, de- 
scribing them as if they could be seen through his cloth- 
ing. The lady’s eyes followed him in this anatomical 
journey with sincere admiration. A true hero; timid, 
shy, and simple, like all strong men. The manager spoke 
of taking his leave. It was after seven and he was ex- 
pected at home. But Dofia Sol rose to her feet with 
smiling determination as if to oppose his going. He 
must remain; they must dine with her; a friendly invi- 
tation. That night she expected no one else. The Mar- 
quis and his family had gone to the country. 

“T am alone — not another word. I command. You 
will stay and take pot-luck with me.” 

And as if her orders admitted of no question, she left 
the room. 

The manager protested. No, he could not remain; he 
had come from outside the city that very afternoon, and 
his family had scarcely seen him. Besides, he had in- 
vited two friends. As for his matador, it seemed to him 


[ 146 | 





-_——= 








THE VOICE OF THE SIREN 


natural and proper that he should stay. Really, the 
invitation was meant for him. 

“But stay a while at least!” said the swordsman, dis- 
tressed. “Damn it! Don’t leave me alone. I shall not 
know what to do; I shall not know what to say.” 

A quarter of an hour afterward Dofia Sol appeared 
again, dressed in one of her Paris gowns, a Paquin model, 
the desperation and wonder of relatives and friends. 

Don José insisted again. He must go, but his matador 
should stay. He would take care to let them know at 
home so that they would not wait for him. Again Gal- 
lardo made a gesture of agony, but he grew calm at a 
look from the manager. 

“Don’t worry,” he whispered, going toward the door, 
“dost thou think I am a child? I will say thou art din- 
ing with some connoisseurs from Madrid.” 

What torment Gallardo suffered during the first mo- 
ments of the dinner! He was intimidated by the grave 
and lordly luxury of the dining-room in which he and 
the lady seemed to be lost, seated face to face at the 
centre of a great table, under enormous silver candel- 
abras with electric lights and rose-colored shades. The 
imposing servants inspired awe; they were ceremonious 
and impassive as if habituated to the most extraordinary 
actions; as if nothing this lady did could surprise them. 
He was ashamed of his dress and manners, feeling the 
strong contrast between the environment and his ap- 
pearance. But this first impression of fear and shyness 
vanished little by little. Dofia Sol laughed at his modera- 
tion, at the fear with which he touched the plates and 
cups. Gallardo ended by admiring her. What an ap- 
petite the blonde woman had! Accustomed to the 


[ 147 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


squeamishness and abstinence of the seforitas he had 
known, who thought it bad taste to eat much, he mar- 
velled at Dofia Sol’s voracity and at the naturalness with 
which she disposed of the viands. Mouthfuls disap- 
peared between her rosy lips without leaving the 
slightest trace of their passage; her jaws worked without 
in the least diminishing the beautiful serenity of her 
countenance; she carried the glass to her mouth without 
the slightest drop of liquor spilling a colored pearl upon 
her clothing. Surely thus must goddesses eat! 

Gallardo, fired by her example, ate, and above all, 
drank much, seeking in the varied and heavy wines a 
remedy for that stupidity that made him silent as if 
abashed in the lady’s presence, and unable to do more 
than to smile and repeat, “ Many thanks.” 

The conversation grew animated; the matador became 
loquacious and talked of funny incidents in the tauro- 
machic life, ending by telling about Nacional’s original 
propaganda, and the feats of his picador Potaje, a wild 
fellow who swallowed hard-boiled eggs whole; how he 
was minus half an ear on account of one of his compadres 
having bitten it off, and how, on being carried injured 
into the infirmaries of the ring, he would fall on the bed 
with such a weight of armor and muscle that he would 
cut through the mattresses with his enormous spurs, and 
then had to be unriveted. 

“Very original! Very interesting!” 

Dofia Sol listened, smiling at the details of the exist- 
ence of these rough men, ever close to death, whom she 
had until then admired only at a distance. 

The champagne completed the work of upsetting Gal- 


[ 148 ] 





bt i 


a a 





THE VOICE OF THE SIREN 


lardo, and when he rose from the table he gave his arm 
to the lady, surprised at his own audacity. Did not they 
do so in the great world? He was not so ignorant as he 
seemed at first sight! 

In the drawing-room where coffee was served he saw a 
guitar. Dofia Sol offered it to him, asking him to play. 

“But I don’t know how! I am the most unskilled fel- 
low in the world, aside from killing bulls!” 

He regretted that the puntillero of his cuadrilla was not 
there, a boy who set the women crazy with his “hands 
of gold” for plucking the strings of a guitar. 

Gallardo was leaning back on a sofa smoking the 
magnificent Havana a servant had offered him. Dofia 
Sol was smoking one of the cigarettes whose perfume 
created such a vague drowsiness. The heaviness of di- 
gestion weighed upon the bull-fighter, closing his mouth 
and permitting him no other sign of life than a fixed smile 
of stupidity. The lady, wearied, doubtless, at the silence 
in which her words were lost, seated herself before a 
grand piano, and striking the keys with virile force, 
drew forth the gay rhythm of Malaguefas followed by 
Sevillanas, and then all the old Andalusian songs, mel- 
ancholy and of Oriental dreaminess, which Dojia Sol had 
stored in her memory as an enthusiastic admirer of 
la tierra. 

Gallardo interrupted the music with his exclamations, 
just as he did when seated near the stage of a music- 
hall. 

“Good for those little hands of gold! Let’s hear 
another.” 

“Do you enjoy music?” asked the lady. 


[ 149 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


“Oh, very much! ” Gallardo had never been asked this 
question until now, but undoubtedly he enjoyed it. 

Dofia Sol passed slowly from the lively rhythm of the 
popular songs to other music more slow, more solemn, 
which the matador, in his philharmonic wisdom, recog- 
nized as “church music.” He no longer shouted ex- 
clamations of enthusiasm. He was overcome by a de- 
licious quiet, trying to keep awake by contemplating the 
handsome lady whose back was turned toward him. 
What a figure— Mother of God! His Moorish eyes 
fastened themselves on the nape of her neck, round and 
white, crowned by an aureole of wild, rebellious, golden 
hair. An absurd idea danced through his blunted mind, 
keeping him awake with the tickling of temptation. 

“What would that gachi do if I should rise and creep 
up behind her step by step and give her a kiss on that 
rich little neck of hers?” 

But his design did not venture beyond a tempting 
thought. That woman inspired an irresistible respect. 
Moreover, he remembered his manager’s talk of the ar- 
rogance with which she could frighten away troublesome 
bores; of that little game learned in foreign lands which 
taught her how to manage a strong man as if he were 
a rag. He continued gazing at the white neck, like a 
moon surrounded by a nimbus of gold seen through the 
clouds which drowsiness hung before his eyes. He was 
going to fall asleep! He feared that suddenly a loud 
snore would interrupt the music, a music incomprehensi- 
ble to him, and which, consequently, must be magnificent. 
He pinched his legs to keep awake; stretched out his 
arms; covered his mouth with one hand to stifle his 
yawns. 


[ 150 ] 








THE VOICE OF THE SIREN 


A long time passed. Gallardo was not sure whether 
he had slept or not. Suddenly Dofia Sol’s voice woke 
him from this painful somnolence. She had laid down 
her cigarette with its blue spirals of smoke, and in a low 
voice that accentuated the words, giving them impas- 
sioned trembling, she sang, accompanying herself by the 
melody of the piano. 

The bull-fighter cocked his ears to try to understand 
something. Not a word. They were foreign songs. 
“Damn it! Why not a tango or a soled? And yet a 
Christian is expected to keep awake.” 

Dofia Sol ran her fingers over the keys, casting her 
eyes upward, throwing her head back, her firm breast 
trembling with musical sighs. It was Elsa’s prayer, the 
lament of the blonde virgin thinking of the strong man, 
the brave warrior, invincible before men, and sweet and 
timid with women. She dreamed awake in her song, 
throwing into her words tremors of passion, the moisture 
rising to her eyes. The simple strong man! The war- 
rior! Maybe he was behind her! Why not? 

He did not have the legendary aspect of the other; he 
was rough and unpolished, but she could yet see, with 
the clarity of a vivid recollection, the grace with which 
days before he had rushed to her rescue; the smiling con- 
fidence with which he had fought a bellowing, infuriated 
beast, just as the Wagnerian heroes fought frightful drag- 
ons. Yes; he washer warrior. And shaken from her heels 
to the roots of her hair by a voluptuous fear, giving her- 
self up for conquered in advance, she thought she could 
divine the sweet danger that was approaching behind 
her. She saw the hero, the knight, rise slowly from the 
sofa, his Moorish eyes fixed upon her; she heard his 


[ 15r | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


cautious steps; she felt his hands on her shoulders; then 
a kiss of fire on her neck, a brand of passion that marked 
her his slave for all time— But suddenly the romance 
ended, and nothing had happened; she had experienced 
no other impression than her own thrills of timid desire. 

Disappointed, she turned around on the piano stool; 
the music ceased. The warrior was there, buried in the 
sofa, with a match in his hand, trying to light his cigar 
for the fourth time, and opening his eyes immeasurably 
wide to drive the torpor from his senses. 

Seeing her eyes fastened upon him, Gallardo rose to 
his feet. Ah, the supreme moment was coming! The 
hero strode toward her, to press her with manly passion, 
to conquer her, to make her his. 

“ Good-night, Dofia Sol. I must go, it is late. You 
will want to rest.” 

Impelled by surprise and dismay, she extended her 
hand, not knowing what she did. Strong and simple 
like a hero! 

All the feminine conventionalisms went rushing in con- 
fusion through her mind, the traditional expressions a 


woman never forgets, not even in the moments of her 


greatest abandon. Her desire was impossible. The first 
time he entered her house? Without the slightest pre- 
tence of resistance? Could she goto him? But when the 
swordsman clasped her hand she looked into his eyes, 
eyes that could only gaze with impassioned steadiness, 
that in their mute tenacity expressed his timid hopes, 
his silent desires. 

“Don’t go— come; come!” 

And she said no more. 


[ 152 ] 








4 

‘3 
be 
ca 


inca xn gr Sc i oa ll LS Se TA NRE LA ERA REO A AN ELEM LOM 





CHAPTER VII 
THE SPANISH WILD BEAST 


GREAT satisfaction was added to the numerous 

conceits which served to flatter Gallardo’s vanity. 
When he talked with the Marquis of Moraima, he con- 
templated him now with an almost filial affection. 
That senor dressed like a country gentleman, a rude 
centaur in chaps, with a strong lance, was an illus- 
trious personage who could cover his breast with official 
sashes and wear in the palace of kings a coat covered 
with embroidery, with a golden key sewed to one 
lapel. His most remote ancestors had come to Seville 
with the monarch that expelled the Moors, receiving as 
a reward for their deeds immense territories taken from 
the enemy, of which the great plains where the Marquis’ 
bulls now pastured were the remains. His nearest fore- 
fathers had been friends and councillors of monarchs, 
spending a large part of their patrimony in the pageantry 
of court life. And this great lord, kind and frank, who 
maintained in the simplicity of his country life the dis- 
tinction of his illustrious ancestry, was almost like a near 
relative of Gallardo. The cobbler’s son was as haughty 
as if he had become a member and formed a part of a 
noble family. The Marquis of Moraima was his uncle, 
although he could not confess it publicly and, though the 
relationship was not legitimate, he consoled himself 
thinking of the dominion he exercised over a woman of 


[ 153 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


that family, thanks to a love that seemed to laugh at all 
law and class prejudice. His cousins also, and relatives 
in greater or less degree of proximity, were all those 
young gentlemen who used to receive him with that 
somewhat disdainful familiarity which connoisseurs of 
rank bestow upon bull-fighters ; these now began to treat 
him as equals. Accustomed to hear Dofia Sol speak of 
them with the familiarity of kinship, Gallardo thought 
it disadvantageous to him not to treat them with equal 
freedom. 

His life and habits had changed. He seldom entered 
the cafés on Sierpes Street where his old admirers gath- 
ered. They were good fellows, simple and earnest, but 
of little importance; small merchants, workmen who had 
risen to be employers; modest employees; vagabonds of 
no profession who lived miraculously by unknown ex- 
pedients, with no other visible occupation than talking 
of bulls. 

Gallardo passed the windows of the cafés and bowed to 
these devotees, who responded with eager signs for him 
to come in. “I’ll return soon.” But he did not. He 
entered an aristocratic club on the same street, with serv- 
ants in knee breeches, with imposing Gothic decorations 
and silver service on its tables. The son of Sefiora An- 
gustias felt a glow of vanity whenever he passed among 
the servants standing so erect, with a military air, in their 
black coats, and a lackey, imposing as a magistrate, with 
a silver chain around his neck, offered to take his hat and 
stick. It pleased him to mix with so many distinguished 
people. The young men, sunk down in high chairs like 
those seen in romantic dramas, talked of horses and 
women, and kept account of all the duels that took place 


[ 154 ] 








THE SPANISH WILD BEAST 


in Spain, for they were men of fastidious honor and un- 
questioned valor. In an inside room they shot at targets; 
in another they gambled from the early evening hours 
until after sunrise. They tolerated Gallardo as an “ orig- 
inal” of the club, because he was a reputable bull-fighter, 
who dressed well, spent money, and had good connec- 
tions. 

“ He is very celebrated,” said the members, with great 
tact, realizing that he knew as much as they did. 

The character of Don José, who was charming and 
well-born, served the bull-fighter as a guarantee in this 
new existence. Moreover, Gallardo, with his cleverness 
as an old-time street gamin, knew how to make himself 
popular with this assemblage of gay youths in which he 
met acquaintances by the dozens. 

He gambled much. It was the best means of coming 
into contact with his “new family” and strengthening 
the relationship. He gambled and lost with the bad luck 
of a man fortunate in other undertakings. He spent his 
nights in the “hall of crime,” as the gambling room was 
called, and he seldom managed to gain. His ill-luck was 
a cause of pride to the club. 

“Last night Gallardo took a good laying out,” said the 
members. “ He lost at least eleven thousand pesetas.”’ 

And this prestige as a strong “bank,” as well as the 
serenity with which he gave up his money, made his 
new friends respect him, finding in him a firm upholder 
of society’s game. The new passion rapidly took posses- 
sion of him. The excitement of the game dominated him 
even to the point of sometimes making him forget the 
great lady who was to him the most interesting object in 
the world. To gamble with the best in Seville! To be 


[155] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


treated as an equal by the young gentlemen, with the fra- 
ternal feeling that the loaning of money and common 
emotions creates! 

Suddenly one night a great cluster of electric globes 
that stood on the green table and illuminated the room 
went out. There was darkness and disorder, but Gal- 
lardo’s imperious voice rose above the confusion. 

“Silence, gentlemen! Nothing has happened. On 
with the game! Let them bring candles!” 

And the game went on, his companions admiring him 
for his energetic oratory even more than for the bulls he 
killed. The manager’s friends asked him about Gal- 
lardo’s losses. He would be ruined; what he earned by 
the bulls was being eaten up by gaming. But Don José 
smiled disdainfully, doubling the glory of his matador. 

“We have more bull-fights for this year than any one 
else. We’re going to get tired of killing bulls and earn- 
ing money. Let the boy amuse himself. That’s what he 
works for, and that’s why he is what he is —the great- 
est man in the world!” 

Don José considered that the people’s admiration for 
the serenity with which he lost added glory to his idol. 
A matador could not be like other men who keep chasing 
after a cent. He did not earn his money for nothing. 
Besides, it pleased him as a personal triumph, as some- 
thing that was an accomplishment of his own, to see 
him established in a social set which not everybody 
could join. 

“ He is the man of the day,” he said with an aggressive 
air to those who criticised Gallardo’s new habits. “He 
does n’t go with nobodies, nor does he sit around taverns 
like other bull-fighters. And what does that prove? He 


‘ [ 156{° 


THE SPANISH WILD BEAST 


is the bull-fighter of the aristocracy, because he wants 
to be, and can be. The others are jealous.” 

In his new ,existence, Gallardo not only frequented the 
club, but some afternoons he mingled with the Society 
of the Forty-five. It was a kind of senate of tauromachy. 
Bull-fighters did not find easy access to its salons, thus 
leaving the respectable nobility of the connoisseurs free 
to voice their opinions. 

During the spring and summer the Forty-five gathered 
in the vestibule and on the sidewalk, seated in willow 
armchairs, to await the telegrams from the bull-fights. 
They had little faith in the opinions of the press; more- 
over they must get the news before it came out in the 
papers. Telegrams from all parts of the Peninsula where 
bull-fights were held came at nightfall, and the members, 
after listening with religious gravity to their reading, ar- 
gued and built suppositions upon these telegraphic brevi- 
ties. It was a function that filled them with pride, ele- 
vating them above common mortals, this of remaining 
quietly seated at the door of the Society, enjoying the 
cool air and hearing in a certain manner, without preju- 
diced exaggerations, what had occurred that afternoon 
in the bull plaza of Bilbao, or of Corufia or Barcelona, or 
Valencia, of the ears one malador had received or the 
hisses that had greeted another, while their fellow-citi- 
zens remained in the saddest depths of ignorance and 
walked the streets obliged to wait till night for the com- 
ing out of the newspapers. When there was an accident, 
and a telegram arrived announcing the terrible goring of 
a native bull-fighter, emotion and patriotic sentiment 
softened the respectable senators to the point of commu- 
nicating the important secret to some passing friend. 


[ 157] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


The news instantly circulated through the cafés on Sier- 
pes Street, and no one doubted it at all. It was a tele- 
gram received at the Forty-five. 

Gallardo’s manager, with his aggressive and noisy en- 
thusiasm, disturbed the social gravity; but they tolerated 
him on account of his being an old friend and they ended 
by laughing at his ways. It was impossible for such crit- 
ical persons to discuss the merits of the bull-fighters 
tranquilly with Don José. Often, on speaking of Gal- 
lardo as “a brave boy, but with little art,” they looked 
timorously toward the door. 

“ Pepe is coming,” they said, and the conversation was 
suddenly broken off. 

Don José entered waving the blue paper of a telegram 
above his head. 

“Have you got news from Santander? Here it is: 
Gallardo, two strokes, two bulls, and with the second, the 
ear. Now, didn’t I tell you? The greatest man in the 
world!” 

The telegram for the Forty-five was often different, 
but the manager scarcely conceded it a scornful glance, 
bursting out in noisy protest. 

“Lies! All jealousy! My message is the one that’s 
worth something. That one shows pique because my 
boy gets all the favors.” 

And the members in the end laughed at Don José, 
touching their foreheads with a finger to indicate his 
madness, joking about “the greatest man in the world” 
and his funny manager. 

Little by little, as an unheard of privilege, he managed 
to introduce Gallardo into the Society. The bull-fighter 
came under the pretext of looking for his manager and 


[ 158 ] 


THE SPANISH WILD BEAST 


finally seated himself among the gentlemen, many of 
whom were not his friends and had chosen their matador 
among the rival swordsmen. 

The decorations of this club-house had distinction, as 
Don José said; high wainscotings of Moorish tiles, and 
on the immaculately white walls, gay posters recalling 
past bull-fights; mounted heads of bulls famous for the 
number of horses they had killed or for having wounded 
some celebrated matador; glittering capes and swords pre- 
sented by certain bull-fighters on “cutting the queue ” 
and retiring from the profession. 

Servants in frock coats waited on gentlemen in country 
dress or in negligee during the hot summer afternoons. 
In Holy Week and during other great feasts of Seville, 
when illustrious connoisseurs from all over Spain called 
to greet the Forty-five, the servants dressed in knee 
breeches and wore white wigs with red and yellow livery. 
In this guise, like lackeys of a royal house, they served 
trays of manzanilla to the wealthy gentlemen, some of 
whom had even taken off their cravats. 

In the afternoons, when the dean of the Club, the illus- 


trious Marquis of Moraima, presented himself, the mem- 


bers formed in a circle in deep armchairs and the famous 
cattle-breeder occupied a seat higher than the others like 
a throne, from which he presided over the conversation. 
They always began by talking about the weather. They 
were mostly breeders and rich farmers who lived on the 
products of the earth when favored by the variable heav- 
ens. The Marquis expounded the observations drawn 
from the knowledge acquired on interminable horse- 
back rides over the Andalusian plain. Upon this im- 
mense desert, with a boundless horizon like a sea of land, 


[ 159 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


the bulls resembled drowsy sharks moving slowly among 
the waves of herbage. The drought, that cruel calamity 
of the Andalusian plains, led to discussions lasting whole 
afternoons, and when, after long weeks of expectation, 
the lowering sky let fall a few drops, big and hot, the 
great country gentlemen smiled joyfully, rubbing their 
hands, and the Marquis said impressively, looking at the 
broad circles that wet the pavement: 

“The glory of God! Every drop of these is a five dol- 
lar gold piece!” 

When they were not busying themselves talking about 
the weather, cattle became the subject of their conversa- 
tion, and especially bulls, as though they were united to 
them by a blood relationship. The breeders listened with 
respect to the Marquis’ opinions, recognizing the prestige 
of his superior fortune. The mere amateurs, who never 
went out of the city, admired his skill as a raiser of noble 
animals. What that man knew! He showed himself 
convinced of the greatness of his occupation when he 
talked of the care the bulls needed. Out of every ten 
calves eight or nine were only good for meat, after being 
tested for their temper. Only one or two which proved 
themselves ferocious and aggressive before the point of 
the spear came to be considered animals suitable for com- 
bat, living apart, with all manner of care—and such 
care! 

“ A herd of fierce bulls,” said the Marquis, “should not 
be treated as a business. It is a luxury. They give, for 
a fighting bull, four or five times more than for an ox for 
the butcher-shop — but what they cost!” 

They must be cared for at all hours, heed must 
be taken in regard to their pasture and water, they must 


[ 160 ] 


THE SPANISH WILD BEAST 


be moved from one place to another with changes of tem- 
perature. Each bull costs more to maintain than a fam- 
ily. And when he is ready he must be watched till the 
last minute so that he may not disgrace himself in the 
ring but do honor to the emblem of the breeder which he 
wears on his neck. 

The Marquis had been compelled to quarrel with the 
managers and authorities of certain plazas, and had re- 
fused to furnish his animals because the band of music 
was placed over the bull-pens. The noise of the instru- 
ments upset the animals, taking away their courage and 
serenity when they entered the arena. 

“They are just like ourselves,” he said with tender- 
ness. “They lack only speech, What doI say? Like 
us? There are some that are better than some people.” 

And he told about Lobito, an old bull, a leader, which 
he declared he would not sell even if they would give 
him the whole of Seville with its Giralda. He no sooner 
galloped in sight of the drove in which this jewel lived 
on the vast pastures, than a shout was enough to call his 
attention. “Lobito!” And Lobito, abandoning his com- 
panions, came to meet the Marquis, moistening the 
horseman’s boots with his gentle muzzle; yet he was an 
animal of immense power and the rest of the herd lived 
in fear of him. 

The breeder dismounted, and taking a piece of choco- 
late out of his saddle bags, he gave it to Lobito, who 
gratefully bowed his head armed with its gigantic horns. 
The Marquis advanced with an arm resting over the lead- 
er’s neck, walking quietly through the drove of bulls, 
which grew restless and ferocious at the presence of the 
man, There was no danger. Lobito marched like a dog, 


{ 16x | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


covering the master with his body, looking in all direc- 
tions, compelling respect among his companions with his 
flashing eyes. If one more audacious drew near to nose 
the Marquis he encountered the threatening horns of the 
leader. If several united with dull stupidity to bar his 
passage, Lobito thrust his armed head among them and 
opened the way. 

An expression of enthusiasm and tenderness moved 
the Marquis’ beardless lips and his white side-whiskers 
as he recalled the great deeds of some of the animals 
produced in his pastures. 

“The bull! The noblest animal in the world! If men 
were more like them the world would be better off. 
There was Coronel. Do you remember that treasure?” 

And he showed an immense photograph with a hand- 
some mounting, that represented himself in mountaineer 
dress, much younger and surrounded by several girls 
dressed in white, all seated in the centre of a meadow 
on a dark mass at one end of which was a pair of horns. 
This mass was Coronel. Immense and fierce toward his 
companions in the herd, he showed affectionate submis- 
sion to the master and his family. He was like a mastiff, 
fierce to strangers, but letting the children pull him 
about by the tail and ears and put up with all their dev- 
iltry with growls of kindness. The Marquis had with 
him his young daughters, and the animal smelt of the 
little girls’ white skirts as they timidly clung to their 
father’s legs, until, with the sudden audacity of child- 
hood, they ended by rubbing his nose. “ Down, Coro- 
nel!” Coronel went down on his knees and the family 
seated themselves on his side, which moved up and down 
like a bellows with the ru-ru of his powerful respiration. 


[ 162 ] 


THE SPANISH WILD BEAST 


One day, after much hesitation, the Marquis sold him 
to the plaza of Pamplona and attended the bull-fight. 
Moraima was moved by the recollection of this event; 
his eyes filled with emotion. He had never in all his life 
seen a bull like that. He came courageously into the 
arena and stood planted in the middle of it, surprised at 
the light after the darkness of the bull-pen, and at the 
clamor of thousands of persons after the silence of the 
stables. But the moment a picador pricked him he seemed 
to fill the whole plaza with his tremendous fierceness. 

“Before him, men, horses, nothing could stand. In 
one minute he threw the horses and tossed the picadores 
into the air. The peones ran. The plaza was like a regu- 
lar branding-pen. The public shouted for more horses, 
and Coronel, in the meantime, stood waiting for some one 
to stand up and face him. Nothing like that for nobility 
and power will ever be seen again. 

As soon as they incited him to come on, he rushed up 
with a courage and speed that set the public wild. When 
they gave the sign to kill, with the fourteen stabs he had 
in his body, and the complete set of banderillas, he was as 
brave and valiant as though he had never gone out of the 
pasture. Then —” 

The breeder, when he arrived at this point, always 
stopped, to strengthen his voice, which grew tremulous. 

Then—the Marquis of Moraima, who had been in a 
box, found himself, he knew not how, behind the barrier 
among attendants who were running about with the ex- 
citement of the eventful contest, and near to the matador, 
who was making ready his muleta with a certain delibera- 
tion, as if wishing to put off the moment for standing 
face to face with an animal of such power. “Coronel!” 


[ 163 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


shouted the Marquis, leaning his body half over the 
barrier and beating the boards with his hands. 

The animal stood still but raised his head at these 
cries — distant calls from a country he would never see 
again. “Coronel!” Turning his head the bull saw a 
man calling to him from the wall and he started in a di- 
rect line to attack him. But in the midst of his advance 
he slackened his pace and slowly approached until he 
touched with his horns the arms held out to him. His 
throat was varnished red with little streams of blood 
which escaped from the barbs buried in his neck and from 
the wounds in his hide, in which the blue muscle could 
be seen. “Coronel! My son!” And the bull, as if he 
understood these outbursts of tenderness, raised his 
dripping muzzle and dampened the Marquis’ white 
beard. “Why hast thou brought me here?” those 
wild and bloodshot eyes seemed to say. And the Mar- 
quis, unheeding what he did, pressed kisses upon the 
animal’s nose that was wet with his furious bellowings. 

“Don’t let him be killed!” shouted a good soul in the 
galleries; and as if these words reflected the mind of the 
public, an explosion of voices filled the plaza, while 
thousands of handkerchiefs fluttered above the tiers of 
seats like flocks of doves. “Don’t let him be killed!” 
For a moment the multitude, moved by a vague tender- 
ness, despised its own diversion, hated the bull-fighter 
with his glittering dress and his useless heroism, ad- 
mired the valor of the animal, and felt inferior to it, 
recognizing that among so many thousands of reason- 
ing beings the greater nobility and sensibility were rep- 
resented by the poor brute. 

“T took him back,” said the Marquis, with emotion. 


[ 164 ] 


ee ee Le 





THE SPANISH WILD BEAST 


“T returned the management their two thousand pesetas. 
-I would have given my whole hacienda. After he had 
been pastured in the meadow a month he didn’t even 
have the scars on his neck. It was my intention to let 
that brave beast die of old age, but the good do not pros- 
per in this world. A tricky bull that was not fit to look 
him in the face treacherously gored him to death.” 

The Marquis and his fellow cattle-breeders passed 
suddenly from this tenderness toward the animals, to the 
pride they felt in their ferocity. One should see the 
scorn with which they talked of the enemies of bull- 
fights, of those who protested against this art in the 
name of prevention of cruelty to animals. Foreigners’ 
nonsense! Errors of ignoramuses, who only distinguish 
animals by their horns and think a slaughter-house ox 
the same as a fighting-bull! The Spanish bull was a wild- 
beast; the most heroic wild beast in the world. And 
they recounted the numerous combats between bulls and 
terrible felines, always followed by the noisy triumph 
of the national wild beast. 

The Marquis laughed as he recollected another of his 
animals. A combat was arranged in a plaza between a 
bull, and a lion, and a tiger belonging to a certain famous 

‘tamer, and the breeder sent Barrabas, a wicked animal 
he had always kept by himself in the pasture because he 
was ever goring his companions, and had killed many 
cattle. 

“T saw that, also,” said Moraima. “A great iron cage 
in the centre of the ring, and in it was Barrabas. First 
they let the lion loose at him and the damned beast, tak- 
ing advantage of the bull’s lack of cunning, jumped onto 
his hind quarters and began to tear him with his claws 


[ 165 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


and teeth. Barrabas jumped with fury to unfasten him 
and get him in front of his horns where his defences lay. 
At last, in one of his turns, he managed to toss the lion 
in front of him and gored him, and then, gentlemen, 
just like a ball, he smelled him from tip to tip a long 
while, shook him about like a figure stuffed with straw, 
till finally, as if he despised him, he tossed him to one 
side and there lay what they call the ‘king of beasts’ 
rolled up into a heap, mewing like a cat that has had a 
beating. Then they let the tiger at him and the affair 
was shorter yet. He had scarcely stuck his nose in be- 
fore Barrabas hooked him and tossed him up, and after 
getting a good shaking, he went into the corner like the 
other, curling himself up and playing baby.” 

These recollections always provoked great laughter at 
the Forty-five. The Spanish bull! Little wild beasts to 
face him! And in their joyful exclamations there was 
an expression of national pride, as if the arrogant cour- 
age of the Spanish wild beast signified equally the superi- 
ority of the land and race over the rest of the world. 

At the time Gallardo began to frequent the Society, a 
new subject of conversation interrupted the endless dis- 
cussions about bulls and the country’s crops. 

At the Forty-five, as well as all over Seville, they 
talked about “ Plumitas,” a bandit celebrated for his 
audacity, who each day acquired fresh fame by the fruit- 
less efforts of his pursuers. The newspapers related his 
deeds as if he were a national personage; the Government 
was interpellated in the Cortes and promised an imme- 
diate capture which never took place; the civil guard 
concentrated and a regular army was mobilized for pur- 
suing him while Plumitas, always alone, with no other 


[ 166 | 








| 


THE SPANISH WILD BEAST 


auxiliary than his carbine and his restless steed, slipped 
in and out among them like a phantom. When their 
numbers were not great he faced them and dropped some 
one of them lifeless, and he was revered and assisted by 
the poor country people, miserable slaves on enormous es- 
tates, who saw in the bandit an avenger of the hungry, 
a quick and cruel justice, like that exercised by the an- 
cient mail-clad knight errant. Plumitas demanded 
money from the rich and, with the air of an actor 
who sees himself watched by an immense audience, from 
time to time he succored some poor old woman or a 
laborer burdened with a family. These acts of gener- 
osity were enlarged upon by the gossips of the rural 
multitude, who at all hours had the name of Plumitas on 
their lips but who were blind and dumb when questioned 
by the military or the police. 

He passed from one province to another with the ease 
of one who knew the country well, and the land-owners 
of Seville and Cérdova contributed equally to his sus- 
tenance. Whole weeks would pass without talk of the 
bandit, when he would suddenly present himself on a 
plantation, or make his entrance into a town, scornful of 
danger. 

At the Forty-five they had direct news of him, the 
same as if he were a killer of bulls. 

“Plumitas was at my place yesterday,” said a rich 
farmer. “The overseer gave him thirty duros and he 
went away after breakfast.” 

They patiently tolerated this contribution and did not 
communicate the news to any but their friends. A de- 
nunciation meant declarations and all kinds of turmoil. 
Of what use? The civil guard pursued the bandit fruit- 


[ 167 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


lessly and when he became angry with the informers 
their property was at the mercy of his vengeance, utterly 
unprotected. 

The Marquis talked about Plumitas and his deeds with- 
out dismay, smiling as if he were discussing a natural 
and inevitable calamity. 

“They are poor boys that have been unlucky and have 
taken to the woods. My father (may he rest in peace!) 
knew the famous José Maria and breakfasted with him 
twice. I have come across many of less fame who went 
around doing mischief. They are like bulls; courageous, 
simple people. They only attack when they are pressed, 
growing hotter under persecution. 

He had left orders at his farmhouses and at all the 
herders’ huts on his vast territories for them to give 
Plumitas whatever he asked for. According to tales of 
the overseers and cowboys, the bandit, with the old time 
respect of the peasant for good and generous masters, 
spoke in greatest praise of him, offering to kill any one 
who might offend the Sefior Marqués in the least. Poor 
fellow! For a pittance, which was what he asked when 
he presented himself, tired and hungry, it was not worth 
while to irritate him and attract his vengeance. 

The breeder, who galloped alone over the plains where 
his bulls pastured, had a suspicion of having several 
times crossed Plumitas’ path without recognizing him. 
He must be one of those gaunt-looking horsemen he met 
in the country solitudes with no town in sight and who 
raised his hand to his grimy hat, saying with respectful 
simplicity : 

“God be with you, Sefior Marqués!” 

Moraima, when he talked of Plumitas, sometimes 


[ 168 ] 





ind eS 


THE SPANISH WILD BEAST 


glanced at Gallardo, who, with the vehemence of the 
neophyte, railed against the authorities because they did 
not protect property. 

“Some fine day he’ll present himself to thee at La 
Rincona’, boy,” said the Marquis with his grave drawl. 

“Damn it! Well, that will not please me, Sefior Mar- 
qués. Man alive! And must one pay such heavy taxes 
for that?” 

No; it would not please him to run against that bandit 
on his excursions at La Rinconada. He was a brave man 
when killing bulls, and he forgot his life in the ring; 
but these professional man-killers inspired him with the 
terrors of the unknown. 

His family was at his plantation. Sefiora Angustias 
loved country life after years spent in poverty in city 
houses. Carmen also enjoyed the peace of the country. 
Her industrious disposition inclined her to see to the 
work of the farm, enjoying the sweetness of ownership 
as she realized the extent of her property. Moreover, the 
leather-worker’s children, those nephews and nieces who 
consoled her for her barrenness, needed the country air 
for the good of their health. 

Gallardo had promised to join them, but put off his 
trip with all manner of pretexts. He lived in his city 
house without other companionship than that of Gara- 
bato, like a bachelor, and this permitted him complete 
liberty in his relations with Dofia Sol. He thought 
this the happiest time of his life. Sometimes he even 
forgot the existence of La Rinconada and its inhabitants. 

Mounted on fiery steeds he and Dofia Sol rode out in 
the same costumes as on that day when they first met, 
sometimes alone, sometimes in the company of Don José, 


[ 169 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


who by his presence seemed to mollify the scandal of 
the people at this exhibition. They were going to see 
bulls on the pastures near Seville, to test calves in the 
Marquis’ herds, and Dojia Sol, eager for danger, was en- 
taptured when.a young bull, instead of running away, 
turned against her at the prick of her javelin and at- 
tacked her so that Gallardo had to rush to her rescue. 

Again they went to the station at Empalme, if a ship- 
ment of bulls had been announced for the plazas which 
gave extra bull-fights late in the winter. 

Dojia Sol curiously examined this place, the most im- 
portant centre of exportation for the taurine industry. 
Near the railroad there were extensive enclosures in 
which enormous boxes of gray wood, mounted on wheels, 
and with two lift-doors, stood by the dozens, awaiting 
the busy times of exhibitions, or the summer bull-fights. 
These boxes had travelled all over the Peninsula, carry- 
ing noble bulls to distant plazas and returning empty to 
be occupied by another, and yet another. 

Human fraud and cunning succeeded in managing as 
easily as merchandise these wild beasts habituated to 
the freedom of the country. The bulls that were to be 
sent off on the train came galloping along a broad dusty 
road between two barbed wire fences. They came from 
far away pastures, and as they drew near Empalme their 
drivers started them on a disorderly race, so as to de- 
ceive them more completely by their scurrying speed. 
In advance, at full gallop, rode the overseers and herders, 
with pikes over their shoulders, followed by the prudent 
leaders covering the others with enormous horns, show- 
ing them to be old cattle. After them trotted the 
fierce bulls, the wild beasts destined for death, marching 


[ 170 ] 


THE SPANISH WILD BEAST 


well flanked by tame bulls, who prevented their get- 
ting out of the road, and by strong cow-boys who ran, 
sling in hand, ready to check with an unerring stone the 
pair of horns that separated from the group. 

When they reached the enclosures the advance riders 
separated, remaining outside the gate, and the whole 
troop of bulls, an avalanche of dust, kicking, bellowing, 
and bell ringing, rushed impetuously into the place, the 
barricade suddenly closing behind the tail of the last 
animal. People astride the walls or peering through the 
galleries excited them with shouts or by waving hats. 
They crossed the first enclosure, not noticing that they 
were shut in, but as though they still ran in the open 
country. The leaders, taught by experience and obe- 
dient to the herders, stood to one side as soon as they 
went through the door, letting the whirlwind of bulls 
that ran snorting after them, pass quietly through. 
They only stopped, with surprise and uncertainty, in 
the second enclosure, seeing the wall ahead of them, and 
as they turned, they found the gate closed in the rear. 

Then the boxing up began. One by one the bulls were 
urged, by the waving of rags, by shouts and blows, to- 
ward a little lane in the centre of which was placed the 
travelling box with its lift-doors. It was like a little 
tunnel at the end of which could be seen the open space 
of other grassy enclosures and leaders that walked peace- 
fully about; a fiction of a far-away pasture which at- 
tracted the wild beast. 

He advanced slowly along the lane, now suspicious of 
danger and fearing to set his feet on the gently sloping 
gangway that led to the box mounted on wheels. The 
bull divined peril in this little tunnel which presented 


[171] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


itself before him as an inevitable passage. He felt on 
his hind quarters the goad that urged him along the lane, 
obliging him to advance; he saw above him two rows of 
people looking over the barriers and exciting him with 
gesticulations and whistles. From the roof of the box, 
where the carpenters were hidden ready to let the doors 
fall, hung a red rag, waving in the rectangle of light 
framed by the other exit. The pricks, the shouts, the 
shapeless mass that danced before his eyes as if defying 
him, and the sight of his tranquil companions pas- 
tured on the other side of the passage, finally decided 
him. He began to run through the little tunnel ; he made 
the wooden inclined plane tremble with his weight, but 
he had scarcely entered the box when the door in front 
fell, and before he could turn back the one behind him 
slid down. 

The loud grating of the locks was heard and the ani- 
mal was swallowed up in darkness and silence, a pris- 
oner in a little space wherein he could only lie down with 
his legs doubled up. Through a trap in the roof armfuls 
of forage fell upon him; men pushed the perambulating 
dungeon on its little wheels toward the nearby railroad, 
and immediately another box was placed in the passage, 
repeating the deception, until all the animals for the 
corrida were ready to start on their journey. 

Dona Sol admired these proceedings in the great 
national industry with all her enthusiasm for “color,” 
and longed to imitate the overseers and cow-boys. She 
loved life in the open, the gallop over the immense plains 
followed by sharp horns and bony foreheads that could 
give death with the slightest movement. Her soul over- 
flowed with strong love for the pastoral life which we 


[ 172] 


THE SPANISH WILD BEAST 


all feel sometimes within us, as an inheritance from 
remote ancestors in that epoch in which man, not yet 
knowing how to extract riches from the womb of the 
earth, lived by gathering the beasts together and de- 
pending on their products for his sustenance. To be a 
herder, and a herder of wild beasts, seemed to Dofia Sol 
the most interesting and heroic of professions. 
Gallardo, when he had overcome the first intoxication 
of his good luck, contemplated the lady in wonder in 
the hours when they were alone, asking himself if all 
women of the great world were like her. Her caprices, 
her versatility, astounded him. He dared not thou her; 
no, not that. She had never encouraged him to such 
familiarity, and once when he tried it, with hesitating 
tongue and trembling voice, he saw in her eyes of gilded 
splendor such an expression of aloofness that he drew 
back ashamed, returning to his old form of address. 
She on the other hand used thou in her speech to him, 


as did the great gentlemen friends of the bull-fighter, 


but this was only in hours of intimacy. Whenever she 
had to write him a short note, telling him not to come 
because she was obliged to go out with her relatives, she 
used you, and in her letters were no other expressions of 
affection than the coldly courteous ones which she might 
employ when writing to a friend of the lower class. 

“ That gachi!’’ murmured Gallardo disheartened. “It 
seems as if she has always lived with scrubs who might 
show her letters to everybody and she is afraid. Any- 
body would say she doesn’t think me a gentleman be- 
cause I am a matador!” 

Other peculiarities of the great lady made the bull- 
fighter sulky and sad. Sometimes, when he presented 


[173] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


himself at her house, one of those servants who looked 
like fine gentlemen in reduced circumstances coldly 
barred the way. “The Sefiora is not in. The Sefiora 
has gone out.” And he guessed it was a lie, feeling 
Dofia Sol’s presence a short distance away on the other 
side of door and curtains. No doubt she was getting 
tired, was feeling a sudden aversion to him, and just at 
the moment of the call gave orders to her servants not 
to receive him. 

“ Well; the coal is burned up!” said he as he walked 
away. “I’ll never come back again. That gachi is 
amusing herself with me.” 

But when he returned he was ashamed of having 
believed in the possibility of not seeing Dofia Sol again. 
She received him holding out to him white firm arms 
like those of an Amazon, her eyes wide and wandering, 
with a strange light that seemed to reflect mental dis- 
order. 

“Why dost thou perfume thyself?” she complained, 
as though she perceived the most repugnant odors. “It 
is something unworthy of thee. I wish thee to smell 
of bulls, of horses. What rich odors! Dost thou not 
love them? Tell me yes, Juanin; beast of God, my 
animal! ” 

One afternoon the bull-fighter, seeing her inclined to 
confidences, felt curiosity regarding her past and asked 
about the kings and great personages who, according 
to gossip, had crossed Dojia Sol’s life. 

She responded with a cold look in her light eyes. 

“ And what does that matter to thee? Thou art jeal- 
ous, maybe? And even if it were true, what then?” 

She remained silent a long while, her gaze wandering, 


[174] 


el 


THE SPANISH WILD BEAST 


her look of madness accompanied always by fantastic 
thoughts. 

“Thou must have beaten women,” she said, looking at 
him with curiosity. “Deny it not. That would greatly 
interest me! Not thy wife; I know that she is good. 
I mean other women, all those that bull-fighters meet; 
the women that love with more fury the more they are 
beaten. No? Truly hast thou never beaten one?” 

Gallardo protested with the dignity of a brave man, 
incapable of ill-treating those who were not so strong 
as he. Dofia Sol showed a certain disappointment on 
hearing his explanations. 

“Some day thou must beat me. I want to know what 
that is.” She spoke with resolution,’ and then her face 
clouded, her brows met, a blue effulgence animated the 
gold dust of her pupils. 

“ No, my strong man; mind me not; risk it not. Thou 
wouldst come out the loser.” 

The advice was valid and Gallardo had occasion to 
remember it. One day, in a moment of intimacy, a some- 
what rude caress from his bull-fighter hands awoke the 
fury of this woman who was attracted to the fellow — 
and hated him at the same time. “Take that!” And 
her right hand, clenched and hard as a club, gave a blow 
up and down the swordsman’s jaw, with an accuracy 
that seemed to follow fixed rules of defence. 

Gallardo was stupefied with pain and shame, while 
the lady, as if she understood the suddenness of her ag- 
gression, tried to justify it with a cold hostility. 

“That is to teach thee a lesson. I know what you 
are, you bull-fighters. If I should let myself be tram- 
pled on once thou wouldst end by flogging me every day 


[ 175 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


like a gypsy of Triana. That was well done. Distances 
must be preserved.” 

One afternoon, in the early spring, they were return- 
ing from a testing of calves in the Marquis’ pasture. 
He, with a troop of horsemen, rode along the highway. 
Dona Sol, followed by the swordsman, turned her horse 
through the fields, enjoying the elasticity of the sod 
under the horses’ feet. The setting sun dyed the verdure 
of the plain a soft purple, the wild flowers dotted it with 
white and yellow. Across this expanse, on which the 
colors took the ruddy tone of distant fire, the shadows 
of the riders were outlined, long and slender. The spears 
they carried on their shoulders were so gigantic in the 
shadow that their dark lines were lost on the horizon. 
On one side shone the course of the river like a sheet 
of reddish steel—half hidden in the grass. Dofia Sol 
looked at Gallardo with imperious eyes. 

“Put thy arm around my waist!” 

The swordsman obeyed and thus they rode, the two 
horses close together, the riders united from the waist 
up. The lady contemplated their blended shadows 
through the magic light of the.meadow moving ahead 
of their slow march. 

“It seems as though we were living in another world,” 
she murmured, “a world of legend; something like the 
scenes one sees on tapestries or reads of in books of 
knight errantry; the knight and the Amazon travelling 
together with the lance over the shoulder, enamoured 
and seeking adventure and danger. But thou dost not 
understand that, beast of my soul. Isn’t it true that 
thou dost not comprehend me?” 

The bull-fighter smiled, showing his wholesome, strong 


[ 176 ] 


THE SPANISH WILD BEAST 


teeth of gleaming whiteness. She, as if charmed by his 
rude ignorance, pressed her body against his, letting her 
head fall on his shoulder and trembling at the caress 
of Gallardo*s breath upon her neck. Thus they rode in 
silence. Dofia Sol seemed to be sleeping. Suddenly she 
opened her eyes and in them shone that strange ex- 
pression that was a forerunner of the most extravagant 
questions. 

“Tell me, hast thou ever killed a man?” 

Gallardo was agitated, and in his astonishment drew 
away from Dofia Sol. Who? He? Never! He was a good 
fellow who had made his way without doing harm to 
anybody. He had scarcely ever quarrelled with his com- 
panions in the capeas, not even when they kept the copper 
coins because they were stronger. A few fisticuffs in 
some disputes with his comrades in the profession; a 
blow with a flask in a café; these were the sum of his 
deeds. He was inspired with an invincible respect for 
the life of man. Bulls were another thing! 

“So thou hast never had a desire to killa man? And 
I thought that bull-fighters — !” 

The sun hid itself, the meadow lost its fantastic il- 
lumination, the light on the river went out, and the lady 
saw the tapestry scene she had admired so much become 
dark and commonplace. The other horsemen rode far in 
advance and she spurred her steed to join the group, 
without a word to Gallardo, as if she took no heed of his 
following her. 


[177] 


CHAPTER VIII 
DIAMONDS IN THE RING 


ALLARDO’S family returned to the city for the 
fiestas of Holy Week. He was to fight in the Easter 
corrida. It was the first time he would kill in the presence 
of Dofia Sol since his acquaintance with her, and this 
troubled him and made him doubt his strength. 

Besides he could not fight in Seville without a certain 
emotion. He would be resigned to a calamity in any 
other town of Spain, knowing he would not return there 
for a long while; but in his own city, where were his 
greatest enemies! 

“We shall see if thou dost shine,” said the manager. 
“ Think of those who will see thee. I want thee to be 
the greatest man in the world.” 

On Holy Saturday the penning in of the bulls des- 
tined for the corrida took place in the small hours of the 
night, and Dojfia Sol wished to assist in this operation as 
piquero. The bulls must be conducted from the pasture 
ground of Tablada to the enclosures in the plaza. 

Gallardo did not assist, in spite of his desire to ac- 
company Dofia Sol. The manager opposed it, alleging 
the necessity of his resting to be fresh and vigorous on 
the following afternoon. At midnight the road that 
leads from the pasture to the plaza was animated like a 
fair. The windows of the taverns were illuminated, and 
before them passed linked shadows moving with the 


[ 178 | 


DIAMONDS IN THE RING 


steps of the dance.to the sound of the pianos. From the 
inns, the red doorways flashed rectangles of light over 
the dark ground, and in their interiors arose shouts, 
laughter, twanging of guitars, and clinking of glasses, 
a sign that wine circulated in abundance. 

About one in the morning a horseman passed up the 
road at a short trot. He was the herald, a rough 
herder who stopped before the inns and illuminated 
houses, announcing that the bulls for the penning-in 
were to pass in a quarter of an hour, and asking that the 
lights be put out and all remain in silence. 

This command in the name of the national fiesta was 
obeyed with more celerity than an order from high au- 
thority. The houses were darkened and their whiteness 
was blended with the sombre mass of the trees; the 
people became quiet, hiding themselves behind window- 
grilles, palisades, and wire-fences, in the silence of those 
who await an extraordinary event. On the walks near 
the river, one by one the gas lights were extinguished as 
the herder advanced announcing the penning-in. 

All was silent. In the sky, above the masses of trees, 
the stars sparkled in the dense calm of space; below, 
along the ground, a slight movement was heard, as if 
countless insects swarmed thick in the darkness. The 
wait seemed long until the solemn tinkling of far away 
bells rang out in the cool stillness. They are coming! 
There they are! 

Louder rose the clash and clamor of the copper bells, 
accompanied by a confused galloping that made the 
earth tremble. First passed a body of horsemen at full 
speed, with lances held low, gigantic in the obscure light. 
These were the herders. Then a troop of amateur 


[ 179 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


lancers, among whom was Dona Sol, panting from this 
mad race through the shadows in which one false step 
of the horse, a fall, meant death by being trampled be- 
neath the hard feet of the ferocious herd that came be- 
hind, blind in their disorderly race. 

The bells rang furiously ; the open mouths of the spec- 
tators hidden in the darkness swallowed clouds of dust, 
and the fierce herd passed like a nightmare — shapeless 
monsters of the night that trotted heavily and swiftly, 
shaking their masses of flesh, emitting hideous bellow- 
ings, goring at the shadows, but frightened and irritated 
by the shouts of the under-herder who followed on foot, 
and by the galloping of the horsemen that brought up 
the rear, harassing them with goads. 

The passage of this heavy and noisy troop lasted but an 
instant. Now there was nothing more to be seen. The 
crowd, satisfied at this fleeting spectacle after the long 
wait, came out of their hiding-places, and many enthu- 
siasts started to run after the herd with the hope of see- 
ing it enter the enclosures. 

The amateur lancers congratulated themselves on the 
great success of the penning-in. The herd had come well 
flanked without a single bull straying or getting away 
or making trouble for lancers and peones. They were 
fine-blooded animals; the very best of the Marquis’ 
herd. On the morrow, if the maestros showed bull-fighter 
pride, they were going to see great things. And in the 
hope of a grand fiesta riders and peones departed. One 
hour afterward the environs of the plaza were dark and 
deserted, holding in their bowels the ferocious beasts 
which fell quietly into the last sleep of their lives in this 
prison. 


[ 180 } 


DIAMONDS IN THE RING 


The following morning Juan Gallardo rose early. He 
had slept badly, with a restlessness that filled his dreams 
with nightmare. 

He wished they would not give him corridas in Seville! 
In other towns he lived like a bachelor, forgetting his 
family momentarily, in a strange room in a hotel that did 
not suggest anything, as it contained nothing personal. 
But to dress himself in his glittering costume in his own 
bed-chamber, seeing on chairs and tables objects that re- 
minded him of Carmen; to go out to meet danger from 
that house which he had built and which held the most 
intimate belongings of his existence, disconcerted him 
and produced as great uneasiness as if he were going to 
kill his first bull. Ah! the terrible moment of leaving, 
when, dressed by Garabato in the shining costume, he 
descended to the silent courtyard! His nephews ap- 
proached him awed by the brilliant ornaments of his ap- 
parel, touching them with admiration, not daring to 
speak; his be-whiskered sister gave him a kiss with an 
expression of terror, as if he were going to his death; 
his mamita hid herself in the darkest rooms. No, she 
could not see him; she felt sick. Carmen was animated 
but very pale, her lips, purple from emotion, were com- 
pressed, her eye-lashes moved nervously in the effort to 
keep herself calm and when she at last saw him in the 
vestibule, she suddenly raised her handkerchief to her 
eyes, her body was shaken by tremendous sobs, and his 
sister and other women had to support her that she 
might not fall to the floor. 

It was enough to daunt even the very Roger de Flor 
of whom his brother-in-law talked. 

“Damn it! Man alive!” said Gallardo. “Not for all 


[ 182 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


the gold in the world would I fight in Seville, if it were 
not to give pleasure to my countrymen and so that the 
shameless brutes cannot say that I’m afraid of the home 
audiences.” ak 

He walked through the house with a cigarette in his 
mouth, stretching himself to see if his muscular arms 
kept their agility. He took a cup of Cazalla in the 
kitchen and watched his mamita, ever industrious in spite 
of her years and her flesh, moving about near the fire- 
places, treating the servants with maternal vigilance, 
managing everything for the good government of the 
house. 

Garabato came to announce that friends were waiting 
for him in the courtyard. They were enthusiastic con- 
noisseurs, the admirers who called on him on bull- 
fight days. The matador instantly forgot all his anxieties 
and went out smiling, his head thrown back, his bearing 
arrogant, as if the bulls that awaited him in the plaza 
were personal enemies whom he desired to face as soon 
as possible and make them bite the dust with his uner- 
ring sword. 

The farewell was, as on other occasions, disconcert- 
ing and disturbing to Gallardo. The women fled so as 
not to see him go, all except Carmen, who forced herself 
to keep serene, and accompanied him to the door; the 
astonishment and curiosity of his little nephews annoyed 
the bull-fighter, arrogant and manful now that the hour 
of danger had come. 

“IT should think they were taking me to the gallows! 
Well, see you later! Don’t worry, nothing is going to 
happen.” 

And he stepped into his carriage, forcing his way 


[ 182 ] 


DIAMONDS IN THE RING 


among the neighbors and the curious grouped before his 
house, who wished good luck to Sefior Juan. 

The afternoons when the bull-fighter fought in Seville 
were agonizing for his family as well as for himself. 
They had not the same resignation as on other occa- 
_sions when they had to wait patiently for nightfall and 
the arrival of the telegram. Here the danger was near at 
hand and this aroused anxiety for news and the desire to 
know the progress of the corrida every quarter of an 
hour. 

The leather-worker, dressed like a gentleman, in a fine 
light woollen suit and a silky white felt hat, offered his 
services to the women in sending messages, although he 
was furious at the neglect of his illustrious brother-in-law 
who had not even offered him a seat in the coach! At 
the termination of each bull that Juan killed, he would 
send news of the event by one of the boys who swarmed 
around the plaza. 

The corrida was a noisy success for Gallardo. As he 
entered the ring and heard the applause of the multitude, 
he felt that he had grown several inches taller. He 
knew the soil he trod; it was familiar; he felt it his own. 
The sand of the various arenas exercised a certain in- 
fluence on his superstitious soul. He recollected the 
great plazas of Valencia and Barcelona with their whit- 
ish ground, the dark sand of the plazas of the north, and 
the reddish earth of the great ring of Madrid. The arena 
of Seville was different from the others — sand from the 
Guadalquivir, a deep yellow, as if it were pulverized 
paint. When the disembowelled horses shed their blood 
upon it, Gallardo thought of the colors of the national 
flag, that floated over the roof around the ring. 


[ 183 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


The diverse architecture of the plazas also influenced 
the bull-fighter’s imagination, which was readily agitated 
by the phantasmagoria of uneasiness. There were rings 
of more or less recent construction, some in Roman 
style, others Moorish, which had the banality of new 
churches where all seems empty and colorless. The 
plaza of Seville was a taurine cathedral of memories 
familiar to many generations, with its facade recalling 
a past century —a time when the men wore the pow- 
dered wig — and its ochre ring, which the most stupen- 
dous heroes had trod. It had known the glorious 
inventors of difficult feats, the perfecters of the art, the 
heavy champions of the round school with its correct and 
dignified bull-fighting system, the agile, gay maestros of 
the Sevillian school with their plays and mobility that 
set the audiences wild — and there he, too, on that after- 
noon, intoxicated by the applause, by the sun, by the 
clamor, and by the sight of a white maniilla and a blue- 
clad figure leaning over the railing of a box, felt equal 
to the most heroic deeds. ; 

Gallardo seemed to fill the ring with his agility and 
daring, anxious to outshine his companions, and eager 
that the applause should be for him alone. His admir- 
ers had never seen him so great. The manager, after 
each one of his brave deeds, arose and shouted, defying 
invisible enemies hidden in the masses on the seats: 
“Let ’s see who dares say a word! The greatest man in 
the world!” 

The second bull Gallardo was to kill Nacional drew, 
with skilful cape-work, to the foot of the box where sat 
Dofia Sol in blue gown and white maniilla, with the 
Marquis and his two daughters. Gallardo walked close 


[ 184 ] 


DIAMONDS IN THE RING 


to the barrier with sword and muleia in one hand, fol- 
lowed by the eyes of the multitude, and when he stood 
before the box, he looked up, taking off his cap. He was 
going to tender his bull to the niece of the Marquis of 
Moraima! Many smiled with a malicious expression. 
“Hurrah for the lucky boys!” He gave a half turn, 
throwing down his cap to end his speech, and awaited 
the bull which the peones were drawing over by the play 
of the cape. In a short time, managing so that the bull 
did not get away from this place, the matador accom- 
plished his feat. He wished to kill under the very eyes 
of Dofia Sol so that, at close range, she should see him 
defying danger. Each pass of his muleta was accom- 
panied by acclamations of enthusiasm and shouts of 
fear. The horns passed close to his breast; it seemed 
impossible for him to escape the attacks of the bull 
without losing blood. Suddenly he squared himself, 
with the sword raised for attack, and before the audience 
could voice their opinions with shouts and counsel, he 
swiftly threw himself upon the brute and man and an- 
imal formed but a single body. 

When the matador drew away and stood motionless, 
the bull ran with halting step, bellowing, with distended 
nostrils, his tongue hanging between his lips and the red 
hilt of the sword visible in his blood-stained neck. He 
fell a few steps away and the audience rose to its feet 
en masse as though it were a single body moved by a 
powerful spring ; the outburst of applause and the fury of 
the acclamations broke out in a violent storm. There 
was not another brave man in the world equal to Gal- 
lardo! Could that youth ever once have felt fear? 

The swordsman saluted before the box, extending 


“i 185 |] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


his arms holding the sword and muleta, while Dofia Sol’s 
white-gloved hands beat together in a fever of applause. 

Then something flew past spectator after spectator, 
from the box to the barrier. It was a lady’s handker- 
chief, the one she carried in her hand, a fragrant tiny 
square of batiste and lace drawn through a ring of bril- 
liants that she presented to the bull-fighter in exchange 
for this honor. 

Applause broke out again at this gift, and the atten- 
tion of the audience, fixed until then on the matador, was 
distracted, many turning their backs to the ring, to look 
at Dojia Sol, praising her beauty in loud voices with the 
familiarity of Andalusian gallantry. A small, hairy tri- 
angle, still warm, was passed from hand to hand from 
the barrier to the box. It was the bull’s ear, which the 
matador sent in testimony of his brindis. 

At the close of the bull-fight, news of Gallardo’s great 
success spread throughout the city. When he arrived 
at his house the neighbors awaited him at the door, ap- 
plauding him as if they had actually witnessed the 
corrida. 

The leather-worker, forgetting his anger at the swords- 
man, candidly admired him, though more for his valu- 
able friendship than for his success as a bull-fighter. 
He had long kept his eye on a certain position which he 
no longer doubted his ability to get, now that his brother- 
in-law had friends among the best in Seville. 

“Show them the ring. See, Encarnaci6n, what a fine 
gift! Not even Roger de Flor himself — !” 

And the ring was passed around among the women, 
who admired it with exclamations of enthusiasm. Only 
Carmen made a wry face when she saw it. “Yes, very 


[ 186 | 


DIAMONDS IN THE RING 


pretty,” and she passed it to her sister-in-law, as though 
it burned her hands. 

After this bull-fight, the season of travel began for 
Gallardo. He had more contracts than in any previous 
year. Following the corrida in Madrid he had to fight in 
all the rings in Spain. His manager studied train sched- 
ules and made interminable calculations for the guidance 
of his matador. 

Gallardo passed from success to success. He had 
never felt in better spirits. It seemed as though he car- 
ried a new force within him. Before the bull-fights 
cruel doubts assailed him, anxieties he had never felt 
in the hard times when he was just beginning to make 
a name for himself; but the moment he entered the ring 
these fears vanished and he displayed a fierce courage 
accompanied ever by great success. 

After his work, in whatever plaza of the provinces, he 
returned to his hotel followed by his cuadrilla, for they 
all lived together. He seated himself, glowing with the 
pleasant fatigue of triumph, without removing his glit- 
tering costume, and the connoisseurs of the community 
came to congratulate him. He had been colossal! He 
was the greatest bull-fighter in the world. That stab 
when he killed the fourth bull! 

“Ts it really so?” asked Gallardo with infantile pride. 
“ That was n’t bad, sure.” 

And with the interminable verbosity of all conversa- 
tion about bulls, time passed unheeded by the bull-fighter 
and his admirers, who never tired of talking of the 
corrida of the afternoon and of others that had taken 
place some years before. Night closed in, lights were 
brought, yet the devotees did not go. The cuadrilla, obed- 


[ 187 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


ient to the discipline of the profession, silently listened 
to their gossip at one end of the room. Until the maestro 
gave them permission, the boys could not go to dress 
and eat. The picadores, fatigued by the heavy iron armor 
on their legs and by the terrific falls from their horses, 
shifted their beaver hats from knee to knee; the bander- 
illeros, prisoners in their garments of silk, wet with sweat, 
were hungry after an afternoon of violent exercise. All 
had but a single thought and cast terrible glances at the 
enthusiasts. 

“ But when will these tiresome old uncles go? Damn 
their souls!” 

Finally the matador remembered them. “ You may re- 
tire.” And the cuadrilla went out crowding each other 
like a school set free, while the maestro continued listen- 
ing to the praises of the “intelligent,” without thinking 
of Garabato who silently awaited the moment of un- 
dressing him. 

During his days of rest, the maestro, free from the ex- 
citement and danger of glory, turned his thoughts to Se- 
ville. Now and then he received one of those brief, per- 
fumed little notes. Ah! if he had Dofia Sol with him! 

In this continual travel from one audience to another, 
adored by the enthusiasts, who desired to have him 
spend a pleasant time in their town, he met women and 
attended entertainments gotten up in his honor. He 
always went away from these feasts with his brain 
clouded by wine and in a fit of ferocious sadness that 
made him intractable. He felt a cruel desire to ill- 
treat the women. It was an irresistible impulse to re- 
venge himself for the aggressiveness and caprices of 
that other woman on those of her own sex. 


[ 188 ] 


DIAMONDS IN THE RING 


There were moments when it was necessary to con- 
fide his sorrows to Nacional with that irresistible im- 
pulse to confession felt by those who carry a great 
weight on their minds. Moreover the banderillero awoke 
in him, when far from Seville, a greater affection, a re- 
flected tenderness. Sebastian knew of his love affair 
with Dofia Sol. He had seen it, although from afar, and 
she had often laughed on hearing Gallardo tell of the 
banderillero’s eccentricities. 

Nacional received the maestro’s confidences with an ex- 
pression of severity. 

“The thing thou shouldst do, Juan, is to forget that 
lady. Remember that peace in the family is worth more 
than anything else for us who go about the world ex- 
posed to the danger of coming home useless forever. 
Remember that Carmen knows more than thou dost 
think. She knows everything. She has asked indirect 
questions even of me about thy affairs with the Mar- 
quis’ niece. Poor girl! It is a sin that thou shouldst 
make her suffer. She has her temper, and if she lets it 
loose she ’ll give thee trouble.” 

But Gallardo, far from his family, his thought domin- 
ated by the memory of Dofia Sol, seemed not to under- 
stand the dangers of which Nacional discoursed, and 
he shrugged his shoulders at such sentimental scruples. 

He needed to speak his thoughts, to make his friend 
participate in his past joys, with the pride of a satisfied 
lover who wishes to be admired in his happiness. 

* But thou dost not know that woman! Thou, Se- 
bastian, art an unfortunate fellow that knowest not the 
best in life. Imagine all the women of Seville put to- 
gether! Nothing! Imagine all those of all the towns 


[ 189 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


where we have been! Nothing, either! There is only 
Dofia Sol. When one knows a lady like that one has 
no mind for any other. If thou didst know her as I do, 
boy! The woman of our kind smell of clean flesh, of 
white clothing. But this one, Sebastian, this one! Im- 
agine all the roses of the gardens of the Alcazar together. 
No, it is something better; imagine jasmine, honeysuckle, 
and perfume of vines like those that must grow in the 
garden of Paradise. But her sweet odors come from 
within, as if she did not put them on, as if they came 
from her very blood. And besides, she is not one of 
those who, once seen, are forever the same. With her 
there is always something yet to be desired; something 
- one longs for and that does n’t come. In fine, Sebastian, 
I cannot explain myself well—but thou knowest not 
what a lady is; so preach not to me and shut thy beak.” 

Gallardo no longer received letters from Seville. 
Donia Sol was travelling in foreign lands. He saw her 
once when he fought at San Sebastian. The beautiful 
lady was at Biarritz and she came in company with some 
French women who wished to meet the bull-fighter. He 
saw her one afternoon. She went away and he had only 
vague knowledge of her during the summer through the 
few letters he received and through the news his man- 
ager communicated from chance words dropped by the 
Marquis of Moraima. 

She was at elegant watering-places whose very names 
Gallardo heard for the first time, and they were of im- 
possible pronunciation for him; then he heard that she 
was travelling in England; afterward that she had gone 
on to Germany to hear some operas sung in a wonderful 
theatre that only opened its doors a few weeks each year. 


[ 190 ] 


DIAMONDS IN THE RING 


Gallardo lost faith in ever seeing her again. She was a 
bird of passage, venturesome and restless, and he dared 
not hope that she would seek her nest in Seville again 
when winter returned. This possibility saddened him 
and revealed the power this woman had exercised over 
his body and his mind. Never to see her again? Why 
then expose his life and be celebrated? Of what use 
was the applause of the multitude? 

His manager tried to soothe him. She would return; 
he was sure. She would return, if only for a year. Dofia 
Sol, with all her mad caprices, was a practical woman, 
who knew how to look out for her property. She needed 
the Marquis’ help to unravel the business tangles of her 
own fortune and that which her husband had left her, 
both diminished by a long and luxurious sojourn far 
from home. 

Gallardo returned to Seville at the end of the sum- 
mer. He still had a goodly number of autumn bull- 
fights, but he wished to take advantage of nearly a 
month of rest. His family was at the seashore at San- 
licar, for the health of the little nephews, who needed 
the salt-water cure. 

Gallardo was overcome with emotion when his man- 
ager announced one day that Dofia Sol had just arrived, 
unexpected by any one. He went to see her immediately, 
but after a few words he felt intimidated by her frigid 
amiability and the expression of her eyes. 

She gazed at him as if he were a stranger. He divined 
in her manner a certain surprise at the bull-fighter’s 
rough exterior, at the difference between herself and 
this youth, a mere killer of beasts. He also divined the 
gulf that had opened between the two. She seemed to 


[ r9r ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


him a different woman; a great dame of another land 
and race. 
They chatted pleasantly. She seemed to have forgot- 


ten the past, and Gallardo lacked the courage to remind . 


her of it, nor did he dare to make the slightest advance, 
fearing one of her outbursts of anger. 

“Seville!” said Dona Sol. “Very pretty — very 
agreeable. But there are other places in the world. I 
tell you, Gallardo, that some day I am going to take 
my flight forever. I foresee that I am going to be very 
much bored here. It seems to me my Seville has 
changed.” 

She no longer thou-ed him. Several days passed before 
the bull-fighter dared to remind her of other times dur- 
ing his calls. He limited himself to contemplating her 
in silence, with his moist, adoring Moorish eyes. 

“T am bored. I may leave any day,” exclaimed the 
lady at every one of their interviews. 

Once again the servant with the imposing air met the 
bull-fighter at the inner gate and told him the Sefiora had 
gone out when he knew for a certainty she was in the 
house. i 

Gallardo told her one afternoon about a short excur- 
sion he must take to his plantation at La Rinconada. 
He must look at some olive orchards his manager had 
bought during his absence to add to his estate; he must 
also acquaint himself with the progress of the work on 
the plantation. 

The idea of accompanying the matador on this excur- 
sion occurred to Dofia Sol and made her smile at its 
absurdity and daring. To go to that hacienda where 
Gallardo’s family spent a part of the year! To invade 


[ 192 | 


° 


DIAMONDS IN THE RING 


with the scandalous audacity of irregularity and sin that 
tranquil atmosphere of domestic life where the poor 
youth lived with those of his own home! The very ab- 
surdity of the idea decided her. She would go; it would 
interest her to see La Rinconada. 

Gallardo was afraid. He thought of the people on the 
plantation, of the gossips who would tell his family 
about this trip. But the look in Dofia Sol’s eyes over- 
threw his scruples. Who could tell! Maybe this trip 
would bring back the old situation. 

He wished, however, to offer a final obstacle to this 
desire. 

“ And Plumitas? Remember about him; they say that 
he is around La Rinconada.” 

“Ah! Plumitas!” Dofia Sol’s countenance, clouded 
by ennui, seemed to clear by a sudden flash from within. 
“How charming! I would be delighted if you could 
present him.” 

Gallardo arranged the trip. He had expected to go 
alone, but Dofia Sol’s company obliged him to take an 
escort for fear of an unhappy adventure on the road. 
He sought Potaje, the picador. He was a rough fellow, 
and feared nothing in the world but his gypsy wife, 
who, when she grew tired of taking beatings, tried to 
bite him. No need to give explanations to him — only 
wine in abundance. Alcohol and the atrocious falls in 
the ring kept him in a perpetual state of stupidity, as if 
his head buzzed and prevented him from saying more 
than a few words and permitted him but a clouded vision 
of things in general. 

Gallardo also ordered Nacional to go with them; one 
more, and that was discretion beyond all doubt. 


[ 193 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


The banderillero obeyed from force of habit but grum- 
bled when he heard that Dofia Sol was going with them. 

“By the life of the blue dove! Must a father of a 
family see himself mixed up in these ugly affairs! What 
will Carmen and Sefia’ Angustias say about me if they 
find it out?” . 

When he found himself in the open country, placed 
beside Potaje on the seat of an automobile, in front of 
the matador and the great lady, his anger little by little 
vanished. He could not see her well, hidden as she was 
in a great blue veil that fell from her travelling cap and 
floated over her yellow silk coat; but she was very beau- 
tiful. And such conversation! And such knowledge of 
things! 

Before half the journey was over, Nacional, with his 
twenty-five years of marital fidelity, excused the weak- 
ness of the matador, and made vain efforts to explain his 
enthusiasm to himself. 

“Whoever found himself in the same situation would 
do the same. 

“Education! A fine thing, capable of giving respecta- 
bility to even the greatest sins.” 


[ 194] 


CHAPTER IX 
BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT 


ET him tell thee who he is —or else let the devil 

take him. Damn the luck! Can’t a man sleep?” 

Nacional heard this answer through the door of his 

master’s room, and transmitted it to a pedn belonging to 
the hacienda who stood waiting on the stairs. 

“Let him tell thee who he is! Unless he does, the 
master won’t get up.” 

It was eight o’clock. The banderillero peeped out of the 
window, following with his gaze the peén who ran along 
the road in front of the plantation until he came to the 
farther end of the wire fence that surrounded the estate. 
Near the entrance to this enclosure he saw a man on 
horseback,— so small in the distance, both man and horse 
seemed to have stepped out of a box of toys. 

The laborer soon returned, after having talked with 
the horseman. Nacional, interested in these goings and 
comings, received him at the foot of the stairs. 

“He says he must see the master,” faltered the pedn. 
“He looks like an ill-tempered fellow. He says he 
wants the master to come down at once because he’s got 
news for him.” 

The banderillero hastened up-stairs to pound on the 
master’s door again, paying no attention to his protests. 
He must get up; it was late for the country and that 
man might bring an important message. 


[ 195 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA. 


“I’m coming!” said Guilarao, grufily, without rising 
from his bed. 

Nacional peeped out again and saw that the horseman 
was advancing along the road toward the farmhouse. 

The peon ran out with the answer. He, poor man, 
seemed nervous, and in his two dialogues with the bander- 
illero stammered with an expression of fear and doubt as 
though not daring to reveal his thoughts. When he 
joined the man on horseback, he listened to him a few 
moments and then returned on a run toward the house, 
this time with even more precipitation. Nacional heard 
him come up the stairs with no abatement of speed, till 
he stood before him, trembling and pale. 

“It’s Plumitas, Sefior Sebastian! He says he’s 
Plumitas and that he must talk to the master. My heart 
told me that the minute I saw him.” 

Plumitas! The voice of the pedn, in spite of his stam- 
mering and his panting with fatigue, seemed to pierce 
the walls and scatter through every room as he pro- 
nounced this name. The banderillero was struck dumb 
with surprise. The sound of oaths accompanied by the 
swish of clothing and the thud of a body that hastily 
flung itself out of bed were heard in the master’s room. 
In the one Dofia Sol occupied there was a sudden activity 
that seemed to respond to the tremendous news. 

“ But, damn him! What does that man want with me? 
Why does he intrude himself at La Rinconada? And 
especially just now!” 

It was Gallardo who rushed madly out of his room, 
with only his trousers and jacket hurriedly thrown on 
over his under-clothing. He ran past the banderillero, and 
threw himself down the stairs, followed by Nacional. 


[ 196 ] . 


BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT 


The rider was dismounting before the door. A herder 
was holding the reins of the mare and the other work- 
men formed a group a short distance away, contemplat- 
ing the newcomer with curiosity and respect. 

He was a man of medium stature, stocky rather than 
tall, full-faced, blonde, and with short strong limbs. He 
was dressed in a gray blouse trimmed with black braid, 
dark, well-worn breeches with a double thickness of 
cloth on the inside of the leg, and leathern leggings 
cracked by sun, rain, and mud. Under his blouse his 
girth was enlarged by the addition of a heavy girdle and 
a cartridge-belt, to which were added the bulkiness of a 
heavy revolver and a formidable knife. In his right 
hand he carried a repeating carbine. A hat which had 
once been white covered his head, its brim flapping and 
worn ragged by the inclement weather. A red handker- 
chief knotted around his neck was the gayest adornment 
of his person. 

His countenance, broad and chub-cheeked, had the 
placidity of a full moon. His cheeks still revealed the 
fair skin through their heavy tan; the sharp points 
of a blonde beard, not shaven for many days, protruded, 
gleaming like old gold in the sunlight. His eyes were the 
only disquieting feature of his kindly face, which looked 
like that of a village sacristan; eyes small and triangular, 
sunken in bubbles of fat — narrow eyes, that reminded 
one of the eyes of pigs, with a wicked pupil of dark blue. 

When Gallardo appeared at the door of the farmhouse 
the bandit recognized him instantly and lifted his hat 
from his round head. 

“God give you good-day, Sefior Juan,” he said with 
the grave courtesy of the Andalusian country people. 


[ 197 ] 


2 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


“ Good-day.” 

“The family well, Sefor Juan?” 

“Well, thanks, and yours?” asked the matador with 
the automatism of custom. 

“ Well, also, I believe. I haven’t seen them for some 
time.” 

The two men had drawn near together, examining one 
another at close range with simple frankness as though 
they were two travellers met in the open country. The 
bull-fighter was pale and his lips were compressed to 
hide his emotion. Did the bandit think he was going to 
scare him? On another occasion perhaps this visit 
would have frightened him; but now, having upstairs 
whom he had, he felt equal to fighting him as though he 
were a bull, should he announce any evil intentions. 

Some seconds passed in silence. All the men of the 
plantation who had not gone to their labors in the field, 
obsessed by the dark fame of his name, contemplated 
this terrible personage with an amazement that had in 
it something infantile. 

“Can they take the mare to the stable to rest a little?” 
asked the bandit. 

Gallardo made a sign and a boy tugged at the animal’s 
reins, leading her away. 

“Care for her well,” said Plumitas. ‘“ Remember that 
she’s the best thing I’ve got in the world and that I 
love her more than my wife and children.” 

Potaje now came out with his shirt unbuttoned, 
stretching himself with all the brutal bigness of his ath-. 
letic body. He rubbed his eyes, always blood-shot and 
inflamed from abuse of drink, and striding up to the 
bandit he let a great rough hand fall on one of his 


[ 198 ] 





BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT 


shoulders with studied familiarity, as if he enjoyed mak- 
ing him wince beneath his fist, but expressing to him at 
the same time a rude sympathy. 

* How art thou, Plumitas?” 

He had not seen him before. The bandit shrank back 
as though to spring from this rude caress, and his right 
hand raised his rifle, but the blue eyes, fastened on the 
picador, seemed to recognize him. 

“Thou art Potaje, if I don’t deceive myself. I have 
seen thee stir up the bulls at Seville and in other plazas. 
Comrade, what terrible falls thou hast suffered! How 
strong thou art! As though made of iron,” 

And to return his greeting, he grasped one of Potaje’s 
arms with his callous hand, feeling his muscle with a 
smile of admiration. The two stood gazing at one an- 
other with affectionate eyes. The picador laughed sonor- 
ously. 

“Ho! Ho! I imagined thee a bigger man, Plumitas. 
But it matters not; take thee altogether, thou art a fine 
fellow.” , 

The bandit turned to Gallardo: 

“Can I breakfast here? ” 

Gallardo made a gesture of the gran sefor. 

“Nobody who comes to La Rincona’ goes without 
breakfasting.” 

They all entered the kitchen of the farmhouse, a vast 
room with a bell-shaped chimney, the habitual place of 
these gatherings. 

The matador seated himself in an armchair; the farm- 
er’s daughter busied herself putting on his shoes, for he 
had rushed down in his slippers. 

Nacional, wishing to show signs of existence and tran- 


[ 199 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


quillized now by the courteous aspect of the visitor, ap- 
peared with a bottle of native wine and glasses. 

“I know thee, also,” said the bandit with as much po- 
liteness as to the picador. “I have seen thee lodge the 
banderillas. ‘When thou wishest thou dost it well; but 
thou shouldst get closer.” 

Potaje and the maestro laughed at this counsel. When 
he went to raise his glass, Plumitas was embarrassed by 
his carbine, which he held between his knees. 

“Say, man, put that down,” said the picador. “‘ Must 
thou keep on guard even when thou goest on a visit?” 

The bandit grew serious. It was all right where it was; 
it was his custom. The rifle accompanied him always, 
even when he slept. And this allusion to the weapon, 
which was like an additional member, ever united to 
his body, turned him grave again. He looked in all direc- 
tions with a nervous restlessness. Anxiety showed in his 
face the habit of living alert, of trusting nobody, with 
no other reliance than his own strength, having a pre- 
sentiment of danger near him every hour. 

A herder walked through the kitchen in the direction 
of the door. 

“ Where’s that man going?” 

As he said this he rose in his seat, drawing the rifle 
towards his breast with his knees. 

He was bound for a large field nearby where the farm 
laborers were working. Plumitas settled himself peace- 
fully again. 

“ Listen, Sefior Juan. I have come for the pleasure of 
seeing you and because I know you are a gentleman, in- 
capable of breathing a whisper against me. Besides, you 


[ 200 ] 





BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT 


must have heard talk of Plumitas. ’Tis not easy to 
catch him and whoever does it shall pay for it.” 

The picador intervened before his maestro could speak. 

“ Plumitas, don’t be silly. Here thou art among com- 
rades while thou dost behave and carry thyself decently.” 

And the bandit, becoming suddenly relieved, began to 
talk to the picador about his mare, boasting of her merits. 
The two men met on a common ground of enthusiasm 
as fearless riders, which caused them to regard horses 
with more affection than people. 

Gallardo, still somewhat restless, walked about the 
Kitchen, while the brown, broad-shouldered women of 
the farm stirred the fire and prepared breakfast, looking 
out of the corners of their eyes at the celebrated 
Plumitas. In one of his evolutions he drew near Na- 
cional. He must go to Dofia Sol’s room and beg her not 
to come down. The bandit would surely go after break- 
fast. Why let herself be seen by this annoying per- 
sonage? 

The banderillero disappeared, and Plumitas noticing 
that the maestro was taking no part in the conversation, 
turned to him, asking him with interest about the rest 
of the season’s bull-fights. 

“T am a Gallardist, you know. I have applauded you 
more times than you can imagine. I have seen you in 
Seville, in Jaén, in Cordova, in many places.” 

Gallardo was surprised at this. How could he, who 
had a veritable army of persecutors at his heels, quietly 
attend bull-fights? Plumitas smiled with an expression 
of superiority. 

“Bah! I go where I wish. I am everywhere.” 


[ 201 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Then he told of the occasions when he had seen the 
matador on the way to the plantation, sometimes accom- 
panied, sometimes alone, passing him close in the road 
without being noticed, as though he were a humble 
herder riding on his nag to carry a message to some 
nearby hut. 

“When you came from Seville to buy the two mills 
you have below, I met you on the road. You were carry- 
ing five thousand duros. Were you not? Tell the truth. 
You see I know all about it. Again I saw you in one of 
those ‘ animals’ they call automobiles, with another gen- 
tleman from Seville, your manager, I think. You were 
going to sign the papers for the Priests’ olive orchard 
and you were carrying a still larger bag of money.” 

Gallardo little by little recalled the exactness of these 
facts, and looked with astonishment at this man who 
was informed of everything. And the bandit went on 
to tell how little respect he had for obstacles. 

“You see those things they call automobiles? Mere 
trifles! Such vermin I stop with nothing but this.” And 
he touched his rifle. “In Cordova I had accounts to set- 
tle with a rich senor who was my enemy. I planted my 
mare on one side of the road and when the beast came 
along, raising dust and stinking of petroleum, I shouted 
‘Halt!’ It would n’t stop, and I let the thing that goes 
around the wheel have a ball. To abbreviate: the auto 
stopped a little farther on and I set out at a gallop to 
join the sefor and settle accounts. A man that can send 
a ball where he wants to can stop anything on the road.” 

Gallardo listened in astonishment to Plumitas’ calm 
professional talk of his deeds on the highway. 

“ There was no reason for stopping you. You do not 


[ 202 | 





BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT 


belong to the rich. You spring from the poor as I do, 
but with better luck, with more of fortune in your work 
than I, and if you have made money you have well 
earned it. I have great respect for you, Sefior Juan. I 
like you because you are a brave matador and I have a 
weakness for valiant men. We two are almost com- 
rades; we both live by exposing our lives. So, although 
you did not know me, I was there, watching you pass, 
without even asking for a cigarette, to see that nobody 
dared so much as touch one of your finger nails; to see 
that no shameless fellow took advantage of you by rid- 
ing out into the road and saying he was Plumitas, for 
stranger things have happened.” 

An unexpected apparition ended the bandit’s speech 
and moved the bull-fighter’s countenance to anger. 
“Damn it! Dofia Sol!” But hadn’t Nacional given her 
his message? The banderillero followed the lady, and as 
he stood in the kitchen door he made gestures of despair 
to indicate to the maesiro that his prayers and counsel had 
been useless. 

Dona Sol came in wearing her travelling cloak, her 
golden hair loosely combed and knotted in all haste. 
Plumitas at the plantation! What joy! She had been 
thinking of him half the night with sweet thrills of ter- 
ror, proposing to herself to ride over all the lonely places 
near La Rinconada, hoping good luck would cause her 
to fall in with the interesting bandit. And, as if her 
thoughts had exercised a power of attraction, the high- 
wayman had obeyed her desires and presented himself 
at the plantation early in the morning! 

Plumitas! That name brought to her mind the typical 
figure of a bandit. She hardly needed to meet him; she 


[ 203 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


would scarcely experience surprise. She imagined him 
tall, well-formed, well-browned, with a three-cornered 
hat above a red handkerchief, from beneath which fell 
jet black curls; his agile body dressed in black velvet; 
his tapering waist bound by a belt of purple silk; his 
legs encased in date-colored leather leggings —a knight 
errant of the Andalusian steppes, almost like those ele- 
gant tenors she had seen in “ Carmen” who discard the 
soldiers’ uniform and become contrabandists for the sake 
of love. 

Her eyes, wide with curiosity, wandered over the 
kitchen without finding a three-cornered hat or an 
ancient fire-lock. She saw an unknown man who rose 
to his feet; a kind of a country guard with a carbine, like 
those she had often met on the family estates. 

“ Good-day, Sefiora Marquesa. And your uncle, the 
Marquis, does he keep well?” 

The gaze of all, converging upon this man, told her the 
truth. Ah! this was Plumitas! 

He had removed his hat with rough courtesy, em- 
barrassed by the lady’s presence; he continued standing, 
the carbine in one hand and the old felt hat in the other. 

Gallardo wondered at the bandit’s words. The man 
knew everybody. He knew who Dojia Sol was and with 
a respectful impulse he gave her the family title. 

The lady, recovering from her surprise, made a sign 
for him to be seated and to cover himself, but, although 
he obeyed the former, he put his hat on a nearby chair. 
As if divining a question in Dofia Sol’s eyes, which were 
fixed on him, he added: 

“Let the Sefiora Marquesa not be surprised that I 
know her; I have seen her many times with the Marquis 


[ 204 ] 


BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT 


and other gentlemen when they were going to test calves. 
I have also seen from a distance how the lady attacked 
the beasts. The Sefiora is very brave and the finest girl 
I have seen in this, God’s own country! It is perfect joy 
to see her on horseback, with her three-cornered hat, her 
cravat, and her belt. The men must follow in crowds 
after her heavenly little eyes!” 

The bandit allowed himself to be drawn by his South- 
ern enthusiasm into the greatest frankness, seeking new 
expressions of praise for the lady. 

She turned pale, her eyes grew large with happy ter- 
ror, and she began to find the bandit interesting. Could 
he have come to the plantation solely on her account? 
Did he intend to kidnap her and carry her away to his 
hiding-place in the mountains with the hungry rapacity 
of a bird of prey who returns from the plain to his nest 
on the heights? 

The bull-fighter also grew alarmed on hearing these 
expressions of rude admiration. Damn it! In his own 
house and in his very face! If this kept up he was 
going upstairs after his gun, and even though this were 
Plumitas, they should see who would have her! 

The bandit suddenly seemed to understand the annoy- 
ance his words caused and he adopted a respectful atti- 
tude. 

“Pardon, Sefiora Marquesa. It is only banter. I have 
a wife and four children. The poor girl weeps more on 
my account than ever wept the Virgin of Agonies. I am 
a peaceful Moor; an unfortunate fellow that is what he 
is because an evil shadow follows him.” _ 

And as though he took pains to be agreeable to Dofia 
Sol, he broke out into enthusiastic praises of her family. 


[ 205 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


The Marquis of Moraima was one of the men he most 
respected in all the world. 

“Tf all the rich were like that! My father worked for 
him, and told us about his charity. I had the fever in a 
herder’s hut in a pasture of his. He knew it but he said 
nothing. At his farmhouses he leaves an order for them 
to give me what I ask and to leave me in peace. Such 
things are never forgotten. When I least expect it I 
meet him alone, mounted on his horse like a young fel- 
low, as if he did not feel the passing of the years. ‘ God 
be with you, Sefior Marqués.’ ‘ Greeting, boy.” He does 
not guess who I am because I carry my companion ”— 
and he motioned to his carbine — “ under my blanket. I 
long to stop him and ask his hand, not to clasp it, no, not 
that; how could such a good man clasp hands with me, 
who have so many killed and maimed to my account? 
No, to kiss it, as though he were my father, to kneel 
before him and give him thanks for what he does for me.” 

The earnestness with which he spoke of his gratitude 
did not move Dofia Sol. So that was the famous Plumi- 
tas! A poor man; a mild rabbit of the plains whom all 
thought a wolf, deceived by his fame. 

“There are also bad rich men,” continued the bandit. 
“How some of them make the poor suffer! Near my 
town there is one that lends money and is meaner than 
Judas. I sent him word not to grind the poor so, and the 
vile thief, instead of paying attention to me, told the 
civil guard to catch me. Well, I burned a barnful of 
straw for him and I did other little things to him and it 
has been over half a year since he has dared go to Se- ° 
ville, or even out of the town for fear of meeting Plumi- 
tas. Another one was going to turn out a poor little old 


[ 206 ] 





BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT 


woman because for a year she had n’t paid the rent of 
the miserable hut she had held ever since her father’s 
time. I went to see the sefior, just at nightfall, when he 
was going to sit down to supper with his family. ‘My 
master, I am Plumitas, and I need a hundred duros.’ He 
gave them to me and I went to the old woman with 
them. ‘Grandmother, take this; pay that Jew; what is 
left over is for you and may it serve your good health.’ ” 

Dojfia Sol contemplated the bandit with more interest. 

“And killed?” she asked. “How many have you 
killed? ” 

“Sefiora, let us not speak of that,” said the bandit 
gravely. “ You would feel repugnance for me and I am 
only a poor, unfortunate, persecuted fellow who must 
defend himself as he can.” 

A long silence fell. 

“ You know not how I live, Sefiora Marquesa,” he con- 
tinued. “The wild beasts fare better than I. I sleep 
where I can, or I do not sleep at all. I get up in one 
end of the province to lie down in the other. One must 
keep his eye well open and his hand firm so they will re- 
spect and not betray one. The poor are good, but pov- 
erty is an ugly thing and turns the best bad. If they 
had n’t been afraid of me they would have handed me 
over to the guards many times. I have no true friends 
but my mare and this ”— holding up his carbine. “ Sud- 
denly I feel a longing to see my wife and babies, and I 
enter my town at night while all the people who recog- 
nize me open their eyes wide. But some day it will end 
wrong. There are days when I get tired of being by my- 
self and I need to see people. Long have I wanted to 
come to La Rincona’. Why should I not see at close 


[ 207 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


range the Sefior Juan Gallardo, I who appreciate him and 
have often applauded him? But I always saw you with 
many friends, or else your wife and your mother and 
the children were here. I understand that; they would 
have been scared to death at the mere sight of Plumitas. 
Now it is different. This time you came with the Sefiora 
Marquesa, and I said to myself: ‘Let’s go and greet 
those fine people and chat with them a while.’” 

The peculiar smile that accompanied these words 
seemed to recognize a difference between the bull-fight- 
er’s family and the lady, and made it clear that Gal- 
lardo’s relations with Dofia Sol were no secret to him. 
Respect for the legitimacy of matrimony dwelt in the 
soul of this poor countryman, and he felt that he was 
authorized in taking greater liberties with the bull- 
fighter’s aristocratic friend than with the poor women 
who composed his family. 

Dofia Sol paid no attention to these words and be- 
sieged the highwayman with questions, wishing to know 
how he had come to his present state. 

“ Nothing, Sefiora Marquesa; an injustice; one of those 
misfortunes that fall on us poor people. I was one of the 
cleverest in my town and the workmen always chose me 
as spokesman when there was anything to be asked of 
the rich. I know how to read and write. Asa boy I was 
a sacristan and they gave me the nickname of Plumitas 
because I was always after the chickens to pull out their 
feathers for my writings.” 

A rough caress from Potaje’s strong hand interrupted 
him. 

“* Compadre, the minute I saw thee I guessed that thou 
wert a church rat or something like that.” 


[ 208 | 





ee a a ee 


BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT 


Nacional held his peace, respecting these confidences, 
but he smiled slightly. A sacristan converted into a ban- 
dit! What things Don Joselito would say when he told 
him that! 

“T married my wife and we had our first baby. One 
night a couple of guards came to the house and took me 
outside the town to the threshing-floor. Some shots had 
been fired into a rich man’s door, and those good gentle- 
men were determined that it was I who did it. I denied 
it and they beat me with their guns. I denied it again 
and they beat me more. To abbreviate, they kept me 
till daybreak, beating me all over, sometimes with the 
barrel, sometimes with the butt-end, until they were 
worn out and I lay on the ground senseless. They had 
me tied hand and foot, and beat me as if I were a bale of 
goods. And all the while they kept saying to me, ‘ Art 
thou not the bravest man in the town? Come on, defend 
thyself; let’s see how far thy brags can carry thee.’ 
This was what hurt most, their jibes. My poor little 
wife cured me as best she could, but I never rested, I 
could not endure the remembrance of those blows and 
jibes. To abbreviate again, one day one of the guards 
was found dead on that same threshing-floor and I, to 
avoid trouble, took to the mountains — and I have lived 
there to this day.” 

“Boy, thou hast a good hand,” said Potaje with ad- 
miration. “And the other?” 

“T don’t know; he must be somewhere in the world. 
He left the town; he asked for transfer in spite of his 
bravery, but I don’t forget him. I have a message for 
him. I get sudden news that he is on the other side of 
Spain and I go there; I would follow him even into the 


[ 209 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


very Hell itself. I leave the mare and the carbine with 
some friend to keep for me, and I take the train like a 
gentleman. I have been in Barcelona, in Valladolid, 
in many cities. I take my place near the jail and I look 
over the guards that go and come. ‘ This is not my man, 
nor this either.’ They have given me wrong information, 
but it doesn’t matter. It is years since I began looking 
for him, but I shall find him — unless he is dead, which 
would be a pity.” 

Dojia Sol followed this tale with interest. An original 
creature was this Plumitas! She had made a mistake in 
thinking him a rabbit. The bandit became silent, knit- 
ting his brows as if he feared he had said too much, and 
meant to avoid a new outburst of confidence. 

“With your permission,” he said to the swordsman, 
“T’ll go to the stable and see how the mare has been 
treated. Wilt thou come along, comrade? Thou shalt 
see something worth while.” 

Potaje, accepting the invitation, went out of the 
kitchen with him. 

When the two were left alone, the bull-fighter and the 
lady, he showed his ill-humor. Why had she come down? 
It was foolhardy to present herself before a man like 
that; a bandit whose name was the terror of the people. 

But Dofia Sol, pleased with the excellent success of 
her encounter, laughed at the bull-fighter’s fears. The 
bandit seemed to her a decent man, a poor fellow whose 
mischievousness was exaggerated by popular fancy. He 
was almost a servant in her family. 

“TI imagined him different, but anyway I am glad I 
have seen him. We will give him an alms when he goes. 


What an original land this is! What types! And how’ 


[ 210 | 


—— ee ee a 





o—_™ 


BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT 


interesting his pursuit of that civil guard all over Spain! 
What a thrilling article one could write about that!” 

The women of the ranch lifted off the flames of the 
fireplace two great frying-pans that shed an agreeable 
odor of sausage. 

“Come to breakfast, gentlemen,” shouted Nacional, 
who assumed the functions of mayordomo at his master’s 
farmhouse. 

In the centre of the kitchen stood a great table covered 
with a cloth, on which were placed round loaves of bread 
and numerous bottles of wine. Plumitas and Potaje and 
several farm hands answered the call, the overseer, the 
farmer, and all those who filled places of greater trust. 
They began seating themselves on two benches placed 
along the length of the table, while Gallardo glanced un- 
decided at Dofia Sol. She ought to eat upstairs in the 
rooms set apart for the family. But the lady, smiling at 
this suggestion, seated herself at the head of the table. 
She enjoyed rustic life and thought it interesting to eat 
with these people. She was born to be a soldier. And 
with a manly air she invited the matador to be seated, 
dilating her nostrils with a voluptuous enjoyment of the 
savory odor of the sausages. A very rich dish! How 
hungry she was! 

“This is right,” sententiously remarked Plumitas, 
looking over the table; “the masters and servants eating 
together, as they say was the custom in olden times. I 
have never seen it before.” And he seated himself near 
the picador, without letting go of his carbine, which he 
held between his knees. 

. “Move over, guasén,” he said, shoving Potaje with his 
body. 


Tarr] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


The picador, who treated him with rude camaraderie, an- 
swered with another shove and the two strong fellows 
laughed as they pushed back and forth, amusing every 
one at the table by their horse-play. 

“But, damn it!” said the picador. “ Get that blunder- 
bus out from between thy knees. Dost thou not see that 
it is aiming straight at me? An accident may happen.” 

The bandit’s carbine, resting between his knees, was 
pointing its black muzzle at the picador. 

“ Hang that up, malaje!” he insisted. “ Dost thou need 
it to eat with?” 

“It’s all right where it is. Never fear,” answered the 
bandit shortly, frowning as if he did not like to hear any 
comments upon his precautions. 

He grasped his spoon, scooped up a great piece of 
bread, and impelled by rural courtesy, glanced at the 
others to make sure that the moment for eating had ar- 
rived. 

“ Good health, gentlemen! ” 

He attacked the enormous dish that had been placed in 
the centre of the table for him and the two bull-fighters. 
Another like it steamed farther down for the farm hands. 
Suddenly he seemed ashamed of his voracity, and after 
a few spoonfuls he stopped, thinking an explanation nec- 
essary. 

“ Since yesterday morning I have tasted nothing but a 
crumb and a little milk they gave me in a herder’s hut. 
A good appetite!” 

He attacked the plate again, winking his eyes and work- 
ing his jaws steadily. The picador invited him to drink. 
Intimidated in the master’s presence, he gazed wistfully 
at the bottles of wine placed within reach of his hand. 


[ 212 | 


BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT 


“ Drink, Plumitas. Dry grazing is bad. It should be 

| moistened.” 

Before the bandit accepted his invitation the picador 
drank, and drank deeply. Plumitas only occasionally 

_ touched his glass after much vacillation. He was afraid 

- of wine; he had lost the habit of drinking it. He did not 

- always get it on the plains. Besides, wine was the worst 
enemy of a man like him, who must live wide awake and 
on guard. . 

“But here thou art among friends,” said the picador. 
“ Consider, Plumitas, that thou art in Seville, beneath the 
very mantle of the Virgin of Macarena. There is no one 
to touch thee. And if by chance the civil guards should 
come, I would put myself at thy side, I would grasp a 
spear, and we would n’t leave one of those lazy devils 
alive. A little more and I would be willing to become a 
free-lance of the mountains! That has always attracted 
me.” 

“ Potaje! ” admonished the maestro from the end of the 
table, fearing the loquacity of the picador and his proxim- 
ity to the bottles. 

The bandit, in spite of drinking little, was red in the 
face and his eyes shone with a happy light. He had 
chosen his place facing the kitchen door, from which the 
entrance to the plantation could be seen, showing a por- 
tion of the solitary road. From time to time, a cow, a 
hog, a goat, passed along this belt of land, and the 
shadow of their bodies, outlined by the sun on the yellow 
ground, was enough to make Plumitas jump, ready to 
drop his spoon and grasp his rifle. He talked with his 
companions at the table, but without withdrawing his at- 
tention from what might be outside the door. It was his 


[ 213 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


habit to live at all hours ready for resistance or for flight, 
making it a point of honor never to be taken by surprise. 

After he had done eating he accepted one more glass 
from Potaje, his last, and he sat with a hand beneath his 
jaw, gazing out of the door, dulled and silent by his 
heavy meal. His was the digestion of a boa, or a stom- 
ach accustomed to irregular nourishment by his prodig- 
ious gorgings, and to long periods of fast. Gallardo 
offered him an Havana. 

“ Thanks, Sefior Juan. I don’t smoke, but I will save 
it for a companion of mine who is in the mountains, and 
the poor boy will value something to smoke more than a 
meal itself. He is a young fellow who has had bad luck 
and he helps me when there is work for two.” 

He put the cigar in his blouse, and the recollection of 
this companion, who at this very hour wandered in 
safety far away, caused him to smile with a ferocious joy. 
The wine had animated Plumitas. His countenance was 
changed. His eyes had metallic gleams of shifting light. 
His puffy face contracted with a grin that seemed to dis- 
pel his habitual kindly aspect. He evinced a desire to 
talk, to boast of his deeds, to pay for the hospitality by 
astonishing his benefactors. 

“ You must have heard about what I did last month on 
the-Fregenal highway. Have you really heard nothing 
about that? I planted myself in the road with my young 
companion — for we had to stop a diligence and give a 
message to a rich man, who has had me on his mind for 
awhile. A domineering fellow was this man, accustomed 
to ordering alcaldes, important persons, and even civil 
guards at his will — what they call in the papers a cacique. 
I sent him a message asking him for a hundred duros for 


[ 214 ] 


BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT 


a pressing need and what he did was to write to the gov- 
ernor of Seville, raise a row up there in Madrid, and make 
them chase me worse than ever. It was his fault that I 
had a gun-fight with the civil guards, and I came out of 
it shot in the leg; and still not satisfied, he asked them to 
imprison my wife, as if the poor thing could know where 
her husband was plundering. That Judas dared not stir 
out of his town for fear of Plumitas; but about then I 
disappeared. I went on a trip, one of those trips I’ve 
told you about, and my man took courage and went to 
Seville one day on business and to set the authorities 
against me.” 

“We lay in ambush for the coach on its return trip 
from Seville. My young companion, who has hands 
of gold for stopping anything on the road, ordered 
the driver to halt. I stuck my head and my carbine in 
at the door. Screams of women, cries of children, men 
who said nothing but seemed made of wax! I said to the 
travellers: ‘Nothing is going to happen to you. Calm 
yourselves, ladies; greeting, gentlemen, and a good jour- 
ney. But come, let that fat man step out.’ And my man, 
cringing as if he were going to hide under the women’s 
skirts, got down, as white as if his blood had left him, and 
lisping as if he were drunk. The coach drove on and 
we stood in the middle of the road alone. ‘ Listen; I am 
Plumitas, and I am going to give thee something that 
thou shalt not forget.’ And I gave it to him. But I 
did n’t kill him right off. I hit him in a place I know, so 
that he would live twenty-four hours, and so that when 
the guards gathered him up he could say it was Plumitas 
that had killed him. Thus there could be no mistake nor 
could others air themselves with importance.” 


[ 215 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Dojia Sol listened, intensely pale, her lips compressed 
in terror, and in her eyes the strange glitter that accom- 
panied her mysterious thoughts. Gallardo made a wry 
face, disturbed at this ferocious tale. 

“ Every one knows his trade, Sefior Juan,” said Plumi- 
tas, as if he divined his thoughts. “We both live by 
killing; you kill bulls, and I people. Only you are rich 
and get the applause and the fine women, while I often 
go hungry and if I don’t take care I will end riddled like 
a sieve in the open plains for the crows to eat. But you 
don’t beat me in knowing your trade, Sefior Juan! You 
know where to strike the bull so he will fall at once. I 
know where to hit a Christian so that he will fall doubled 
up and last a while, or else spend a few weeks remem- 
bering Plumitas, who wishes not to mix with anybody, 
but who knows how to settle with those who meddle with 
him.” 

Again Dojia Sol felt curiosity to know the number of 
his crimes. 

“ And killed? How many people have you killed?’ 

“You will take a dislike to me, Sefiora Marquesa; but 
since you persist . . . Understand that I cannot rec- 
ollect them all, no matter how much I want to remem- 
ber. They probably amount to thirty or thirty-five; I 
don’t know for sure. In this wandering life, who thinks 
of keeping accounts? But I am a luckless fellow, Sefiora 
Marquesa; an unfortunate fellow. The fault belongs to 
them that made me bad. That matter of killing is like 
eating cherries. You pull one and the others come after, 
by dozens. One must kill to go on living and if one 
feels pity he is eaten for his pains.” 

There was a long silence. The lady contemplated the 


[ 216 ] 


BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT 


bandit’s short thick hands with his uneven finger nails. 
But Plumitas was not looking at the Sefiora Marquesa. 
All his attention was given to the matador in his desire to 
show him gratitude for having received him at his table 
and to dispel the bad effect his words seemed to have 
upon him. 

“TI respect you, Sefior Juan,” he said. “ The first time 
I saw you fight bulls, I said to myself, ‘That’s a brave 
fellow.’ You have many devotees who admire you, but 
not the way I do! Believe me, that to see you, I have 
many times disguised myself, and gone into the towns 
where you were fighting the bulls with the risk of being 
captured. Is that devotion?” 

Gallardo smiled with an affirmative nodding of his 
head, flattered now in his artistic pride. 

“ Besides,” continued the bandit, “nobody can say I 
came to La Rincona’ to ask even a piece of bread. Many 
times I have gone hungry or have lacked five duros, rid- 
ing around near here, and never till to-day has it occurred 
to me to pass through the wire fence of the plantation. 
‘Sefior Juan is sacred to me,’ I said to myself always. 
‘He earns his money the same as I do, exposing his life. 
Comradeship must be respected.’ For you will not deny, 
Sefior Juan, that although you are a great personage, and 
I one of the most unfortunate of men, we are alike, we 
both live by playing with death. We are quietly eating 
here, but some day, if God tires of us and deserts us, 
they ’ll gather me up from the roadside like a mad dog 
shot to pieces, and you with all your capital will be car- 
ried out of a ring foot foremost; and although the papers 
may talk of your, misfortune four weeks or so, damned 
little you will thank them over there in the other world.” 


[217] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


“It is true — it is true,” said Gallardo, with sudden pal- 
lor at the bandit’s words. 

The superstitious fear he felt when moments of danger 
drew near was reflected in his countenance. His destiny 
seemed similar to that of this terrible vagabond who must 
necessarily fall some day or other in his unequal struggle. 

“But do you believe I think of death?” continued 
Plumitas. “I repent of nothing and I go on my way. I 
also have my desires and my little pride, the same as 
you, when you read in the papers that you did good work 
on such a bull and that they gave you the ear. Remem- 
ber that they talk of Plumitas all over Spain, that the 
newspapers tell the greatest lies about me, and, accord- 


ing to what they say, they are going to bring me outin _. 


the theatres. Even in Madrid, in that palace where the 
deputies meet to hold parley, they talk of me nearly every 
week. 

“On top of all this, the pride of having an army fol- 
lowing my steps, of being able, a lone man, to stir the 
wrath of thousands who live off of the government and 
wield a sword! The other day, on Sunday, I entered a 
town at mass time and I stopped my mare in the square 
near some blind men who were playing the guitar and 
singing. The people were staring at a picture the singers 
had, representing a fine fellow with a three-cornered hat, 
whiskers, dressed in the finest style, mounted on a mag- 
nificent horse, with his blunderbuss on the horn of his 
saddle and a plump lass on the crupper. I stopped when 
I saw that the fine fellow in the picture was Plumitas! 
That gives pleasure. When one is condemned like Adam 
to work or starve, it is well to have the people imagine 
his existence different. I bought the paper from the blind 


[ 218 ] 


BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT 


singers and I carry it here; the complete life of Plumitas, 
with many lies, but all set to verse. A fine thing! When 
I lie down on the mountain I read it to learn it by heart. 
Some sefior who knows much must have written it.” 

The dreaded Plumitas showed an infantile pride as he 
talked of his glory. The silent modesty with which he 
entered the plantation was gone; the desire that they 
should forget his fame and look upon him as nothing 
but a poor traveller pressed by hunger had vanished. He 
glowed when he remembered that his name was famous 
and that his deeds received the honors of publicity. 

“Who would have known me,” he went on, “if I had 
kept on living in my village? I have thought much about 
that. We downtrodden fellows have no other recourse 
than to toil for others, or to follow the only career that 
gives money and name —killing! I was no good at kill- 
ing bulls. My village is in the mountains and has no 
fierce cattle. Besides, I am heavy and unskilled. So I 
kill people. It is the best thing a poor man can do to be 
respected and make his way.” 

Nacional, who had listened to the bandit’s words with 
silent gravity, thought it necessary to intervene. 

“What the poor man needs is education: to know 
how to read and write.” 

Nacional’s words provoked the laughter of all who 
knew his hobby. 

“ There thou hast let loose one of thy ideas, comrade,” 
said Potaje. “Let Plumitas go on explaining himself, 
for what he says is very good.” 

The bandit received the banderillero’s interruption with 
scorn; he had little respect for him on account of his 
timidity in the ring. 


[ 219 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


“T know how to read and write. And of what use is 
that ? When I lived in the village it only brought me 
into notice and made my fate seem harder. What the 
poor man needs is justice; let them give him what be- 
longs to him and if they won’t give it to him, let him 
take it. One must be a wolf and cause terror. The other 
wolves will then respect him, and the cattle even let him 
eat gratefully. If they find thee a coward and without 
strength, even the sheep will despise thee.” 

Potaje, who was now drunk, assented with enthusiasm 
to all Plumitas said. He did not understand his words 
well, but through the dark mist of his intoxication he 
thought he could distinguish a glow of supreme wisdom. 

“That ’s right, comrade. A club to all the world. Go 
on, for thou art very clever.” 

“I know people,” continued the bandit. “ The world 
is divided into two families, the shearers and the shorn. 
I don’t want to be shorn; I was born to shear, because 
I am very brave and am afraid of nobody. The same 
thing has happened to you, Sefior Juan. By being of 
good kidney you have lifted yourself up from the com- 
mon herd, but your way is better than mine.” 

He sat contemplating the maestro a while and then added 
with an accent of conviction: “I think, Sefior Juan, that 
we have come into the world rather late. What deeds of 
valor and glory young fellows like ourselves would have 
done in other times! You would not kill bulls and I 
would not roam over the plains hunted like a wild beast. 
We would be viceroys, grand moguls! Some great thing 
across the seas! You have not heard of one Pizarro, 
Sefior Juan?” 

Sefior Juan made an ambiguous gesture, not wishing 


[ 220 | 


BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT 


to reveal his ignorance of this mysterious name which he 
heard for the first time. 

“The Sefiora Marquesa knows who he is better than I 
and she will pardon me if I say wild things. I learned 
that history when I was a sacristan and turned myself 
loose on old romances belonging to the priest. Well, 
Pizarro was a poor fellow like us, who crossed the sea 
with twelve or thirteen youths as ragged as himself, and 
entered a country finer than Paradise — a kingdom where 
lies Potosi —I need say no more. They had I don’t 
know how many battles with the natives of the Americas 
who wear feathers and carry bows and arrows, and finally 
they became their masters, appropriated the treasures of 
the kings of the country, and the least of them filled his 
house to the roof all with gold coins, and there was n't 
one that was n’t made a marquis, a general, or a person- 
age of power. Many others are like them. Imagine, 
Sefior Juan, if we had only lived then! What would it 
have cost us for you and me and some of these stout 
fellows who are listening to me to do as much or more 
than that Pizarro?” 

And the men of the plantation, ever silent, but with 
eyes glowing with emotion at this marvellous history, 
assented to the bandit’s theories, nodding their heads. 

“T repeat that we are born too late, Sefior Juan. Great 
careers are closed to the poor. The Spaniard knows not 
what to do. There is no longer any place left for him to 
go. What there used to be in the world to be divided up, 
now the English and other foreigners have appropriated. 
The door is closed and we brave men have to rot inside 
this barn-yard listening to hard words because we don’t 
surrender ourselves to our fate. I, who like enough 


[ 221 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


would have become a king in the Americas, or some other 
place, go along the roads branded as an outcast, and they 
even call me a thief! You, who are a valiant man, kill 
bulls and get applause, but I know that many gentlemen 
look upon bull-fighting as a low-down trade.” 

Dofia Sol intervened to give the highwayman counsel. 
Why did he not become a soldier? He could go to dis- 
tant lands where there were wars and utilize his powers 
nobly. 

“Yes, I would be good for that, Sefora Marquesa. I 
have often thought of it. When I sleep at some planta- 
tion or hide myself in my house a few days, the first 
time I get into bed like a Christian and eat a hot meal 
on a table like this, my body is grateful for it, but I soon 
tire, and it seems to me the mountain calls me with all 
its poverty, and I long to sleep in the open wrapped in 
my blanket with a stone for a pillow. Yes; I would make 
a good soldier. But where could I go? There are no 
longer any real wars, where each one with a handful of 
comrades does whatever seems wisest to him. To-day 
there are only herds of men all wearing the same color 
and the same brand, who live and die like clowns. The 
same thing happens as in the world: shearers and shorn. 
You do a great deed and the colonel appropriates it; you 
fight a wild beast and they give the reward to the gen- 
eral. No, I was also born too late to be a soldier.” 

Plumitas lowered his eyes, remaining a long time as 
if absorbed in inward contemplation of his misfortune, 
realizing that he had no place in the present epoch. 

Suddenly he grasped his carbine, about to rise. 

“T must go—many thanks, Sefior Juan, for your at- 
tentions. Farewell, Sefiora Marquesa.” 


[ 222 } 


BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT 


“ But where art thou going?” said Potaje pulling him 
back. “Sit down, malaje. In no place art thou better off 
than here.” 

The picador desired to prolong the highwayman’s stay, 
pleased to be able to talk with him as with a life-long 
friend, to be able to tell afterward in the city about 
his interesting adventure. 

“ T have spent three hours here and I must go. I never 
stay so long in an open, level place like La Rincona’. It 
may be that some one has already gone with a whisper 
that I am here.” 

“ Art thou afraid of the guards?” asked Potaje. “ They 
won’t come, and if they do, I am with thee.” 

Plumitas made a deprecatory gesture. The guards! 
They were men like others; there might be brave ones, 
but they were all fathers of families who tried not to see 
him, and when they heard he was ata certain place, they 
came too late. They only went against him when chance 
threw them face to face, without means of evasion. 

“Tast month I was at the Five Chimneys plantation 
breakfasting as I am here, though not in such good com- 
pany, when I saw six guards coming afoot. I am sure 
that they did not know I was there, and that they came 
only for refreshment. Bad luck, but neither they nor I 
could fly in plain sight of all the people on the plantation. 
That would cause talk, and evil tongues make one lose 
respect, and they will say we are all cowards. The owner 
of the hacienda shut the gate, and the guards began to 
beat on it with their muskets to make him open up. I 
ordered him and a herder to stand behind the doors. 
‘When I say now, open wide. I mounted the mare and 
held my revolver in my hand. ‘Now!’ The gate opened 


[ 223 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


and I rode off flinging demons! You don’t know what 
my poor little mare can do. They sent I know not how 
many shots after me, but nothing! I, too, let loose as I 
rode away, and according to what they say, I hit two 
guards. To abbreviate: I went leaning along my mare’s 
neck so they could n’t hit me and the guards took their 
revenge by giving the men of the hacienda a beating. 
That’s why it is better to say nothing about my visits, 
Sefior Juan. Along will come those fellows with their 
cocked hats and they ‘ll make you dizzy with questions 
and declarations, as though they were going to catch me 
with that.” 

The men of La Rinconada assented dumbly. They al- 
ready knew it. They must keep quiet about the visit to 
avoid trouble, as was done in all the plantations and 
herders’ ranches. This general silence was the bandit’s 
most powerful aid. Moreover, all these countrymen 
were Plumitas’ admirers. In their rude enthusiasm they 
looked upon him as an avenging hero. They had noth- 
ing to fear from him. His threats only weighed against 
the rich. 

“TI am not afraid of the guards,” continued the bandit. 
“It’s the poor I fear. They are all good, but what an 
ugly thing is poverty! I know those of the cocked hats 
will not kill me; they have no balls for me. If anybody 
kills me, it will be some poor fellow. One lets them 
come near without fear, because they are one’s own kind, 
and then they take advantage of one’s carelessness. I 
have enemies; people sworn against me. Sometimes 
there are rascals who carry the whisper in the hope of 
a few pesetas, or renegades who are sent to do a thing and 
don’t do it, and one must keep a firm hand to have the 


[ 224 ] 


For me!” asked the bandit in tones ot surprise and won- 
der. “For me, Senora Marquesa?” 








BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT 


respect of all. If one really harms them the family is 
left to avenge him. If one is good and contents himself 
with giving them a caress with a handful of nettles and 
thistles, they remember that joke all their lives —the 
poor, my own kind, are those I fear.” 

Plumitas stopped, and gazing at Gallardo added: 

“ Besides, there are the admirers, the pupils, the young 
fellows that come chasing along behind. Sefior Juan, 
tell the truth, which tire you more, the bulls, or all 
those hungry young bull-fighters who are always want- 
ing favors of the maestro? The same thing happens to 
me. Did n’t I tell you that we are equals! In every town 
there ’s some fine young fellow who dreams of being my 
heir and hopes to catch ‘me: some day sleeping in the 
shade of a tree and. blow my head off. A fine advertise- 
ment it will be for him who catches Plumitas!” 

After this he got up and went to the stable followed 
by Potaje, and a quarter of an hour afterward he led out 
into the courtyard his strong mare, the inseparable com- 
panion of his wanderings. The big-boned animal seemed 
larger and handsomer after the brief hours of feasting in 
the mangers at La Rinconada. Plumitas stopped ar- 
ranging his blanket over the horn to caress her flanks. 
She might indeed be content. Seldom would she be so 
well treated as at this hacienda of Sefior Juan Gallardo. 
Now she must behave, for the journey would be long. 

“ And where art thou going, comrade? ” said Potaje. 

“You should n’t ask that. Abroad through the land! 
I myself know not. To meet whatever comes along.” 

And putting the toe of his boot in one of the blackened 
and mud-bespattered stirrups, he gave a spring and rose 
into the saddle. Gallardo moved away from Dojia Sol, 


[ 225 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


who contemplated the bandit’s preparation for his jour- 
ney with her mysterious eyes, her lips pale and com- 
pressed by emotion. The bull-fighter searched in the in- 
side of his jacket and walked toward the rider offering 
him without ostentation some papers crushed in his hand. 

“What is that?” said the bandit. “Money? Thanks, 
Sefior Juan. You have heard that it is best to give me 
something when I leave an hacienda, but that is for oth- 
ers, for the rich who earn their money in flowery ease. 
You earn it by exposing your life. We are companions. 
Keep it, Sefior Juan.” 

Sefior Juan put the bills back, somewhat annoyed by 
the bandit’s refusal and by his determination to treat him 
as a comrade. 

“You may tender me a bull if we ever meet in the 
ring,” added Plumitas. “That is worth more than all 
the gold in the world.” 

Dofia Sol advanced till she stood close to one of the 
horseman’s legs, and unfastening an autumn rose she 
wore on her breast she offered it silently, gazing at him 
with her gold-green eyes. 

“For me?” asked the bandit in tones of surprise and 
wonder. “For me, Sefiora Marquesa?” 

Seeing the lady’s nod of affirmation he accepted the 
flower with embarrassment, handling it stupidly as if it 
were of astonishing weight, not knowing where to put 
it, till at last he thrust it into a buttonhole of his blouse, 
between the two ends of the red handkerchief he wore 
around his neck. 

“This surely is good!” he exclaimed, his round face 
broadening into a smile. “ Nothing to equal this ever 
happened to me before in all my life.” 


[ 226 ] 


BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT 


The rough horseman seemed touched and disturbed at 
the same time by the feminine character of the gift. 
Roses for him—! 

He pulled at his mare’s reins. 

“Health to all, gentlemen! Until we meet again! 
Health, brave fellow! Sometime I’ll throw thee a cigar 
if thou dost stick thy lance in well.” 

He bade the picador farewell, giving him a blow with 
his hand, and the centaur answered him with a slap on 
the thigh that made the bandit’s vigorous muscles trem- 
ble. What a fine fellow, that Plumitas! Potaje, in his 
mellow state of intoxication, wished to take to the moun- 
tains in company with him. 

** Adios! Adios!” 

And setting spurs to his steed he rode away from the 
hacienda at a swift trot. 

Gallardo manifested satisfaction on seeing him go. 
Then he looked at Dofia Sol, who stood motionless, fol- 
lowing the horseman with her eyes as he vanished in 
the distance. 

“What a woman!” murmured the swordsman with 
dismay. “What a mad lady!” 

It was good luck that Plumitas was ugly, and went 
ragged and dirty like a vagabond. If not, verily she 
would have gone with him. 


[227] 


CHAPTER X 
A LOOK INTO THE FACE OF DEATH 


T seems a lie, Sebastian. A man like thee, with a 

wife and children, lending thyself to such wicked- 
ness. And I thought better of thee and had confidence in 
thee when thou wert travelling with Juaniyo! I worried 
not because he went with a person of character. Where 
are all those fine things, the honorable ideas and thy re- 
ligion? Is this what is commanded in those Jew meet- 
ings that gather at the house of Don Joselito, the 
teacher?” 

Nacional, alarmed at the indignation of Gallardo’s 
mother, and moved by Carmen’s tears as she wept in 
silence, her face hidden in her kerchief, defended himself 
stupidly. But as he heard the last words he sat erect 
with priestly gravity. 

“Sefia’ Angustia’, touch not my ideas and leave Don 
Joselito in peace, an it please you, for he has nothing to 
do with all this. By the life of the blue dove! I went 
to La Rincona’ because my matador ordered me. Do you 
know what a cuadrillais? Just the same as an army: dis- 
cipline and servility! The matador commands and one 
must obey. For these bull-fight customs descend from 
the times of the Inquisition and there is no more con- 
servative trade.” 

“Clown!” screamed Sefiora Angustias. “Fine thou — 
art with all thy fables about the Inquisition and Cor- 


[ 228 } 


A LOOK INTO THE FACE OF DEATH 


servatives! Among you all you are killing that poor 
girl, who spends the whole day shedding tears like the 
Dolorosa. What thou art anxious about is to cover up 
my son’s rascalities because he feeds thee.” 

“You have said it, Sefia’ Angustia’. Juaniyo feeds me, 
that’s it. And since he feeds me, I have to obey him. 
But look here, Sefiora; put yourself in my place. My 
matador tells me I must go to La Rincona’. Good! And 
at the hour of leaving I find myself in the automobile 
with a very fine great lady. What can I do? My 
matador commands. Moreover, I didn’t go alone. Potaje 
went along and he is a person of years and respect.” 

The bull-fighter’s mother was more indignant at this 
excuse. 

“Potaje! A bad man, that Juaniyo would not keep in 
his cuadrilla if he had any pride! Don’t talk to me about 
that drunkard that beats his wife and keeps his children 
starving.” 

“Well, Potaje aside. I say I saw that great lady and 
what was I to do? She was not a wanton; she is the 
niece of the marquis who is patron of the maestro — and 
you well know that bull-fighters have to be on good terms 
with people of power. They have to live off the public. 
Then, at the hacienda, nothing! I swear it to you by 
my own dear ones—nothing! I would be a fine fellow 
to stand such bad business, even though my matador or- 
dered me to! I am a decent man, Sefia’ Angustia’. By 
the life of the dove! When one is on the committee and 
is consulted on election-day, and counsellors and deputies 
clasp this hand you see here, can one do certain things? 
I repeat, nothing! They said you in talking to one an- 
éther, the same as you and I do; each one spent the night 


[ 229 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


in his proper place; not a wicked look, not an ugly word. 
Decency at all hours. And if you would like to have 
Potaje come, he will tell you —” 

But Carmen interrupted him with a plaintive voice, 
broken by sighs. 

“In my house!” she groaned with an expression of 
agony. “At the hacienda! And she slept in my bed! 
I knew all about it before and I kept still, I kept still! 
But this! Josi! This—there’s not another man in all 
Seville would dare do as much!” 

Nacional intervened kindly. 

“ Be calm, Sefiora Carmen. Why, that was of no im- 
portance! Merely the visit of a female admirer of the 
maestro’s to the plantation, one who desired to see at close 
range how he lived in the country. These half foreign 
ladies are always capricious and queer. You ought to 
have seen the French women when the cuadrilla went 
to fight at Nimes and Arles! The whole thing is noth- 
ing! the whole thing, liquid! Man alive! by the blue 
dove! I would like to see the tattler that brought such 
news!” 

Carmen continued weeping without listening to the 
banderillero’s indignant protestations, while Sefia’ Angus- 
tias, seated in an arm-chair against which her super- 
abundant obesity rose and fell, frowned and compressed 
her hairy, wrinkled lips. 

“Shut up, Sebastian, and don’t lie,” said the old wo- 
man. “I know it all. That trip to the hacienda was an 
indecent carousal, a gypsy’s revel. They even say you 
had Plumitas, the robber, with you.” 

Here Nacional gave a start of surprise and anxiety. _ 
He imagined he saw an ill-appearing horseman with a 
greasy hat entering the courtyard, treading the marble 


[ 230 ] 





: 


A LOOK INTO THE FACE OF DEATH 


flags and, dismounting from his mare, pointing a carbine 
at him for being a babbler and a coward. Then he 
seemed to see cocked hats, many cocked hats of shining 
rubber, moustached mouths questioning, hands _ scrib- 
bling, and the whole cuadrilla, in their spangled costumes, 
bound elbow to elbow on the road to prison. Here truly 
he must make energetic denial. 

“Liquid! All liquid! What say you about Plumitas? 
Everything was decent there. Man alive! Nothing was 
lacking but that a citizen like myself, who carries to the 
voting boxes more than a hundred votes from my ward, 
should be accused of being a friend of Plumitas!” 

Sefiora Angustias, overcome by Nacional’s protests, 
and a little uncertain about this last report, ceased insist- 
ing on it. Good; nothing about Plumitas! But the other 
thing! The trip to the hacienda with that — woman! 
And firm in the blindness of motherhood, which would 
put all the responsibility for her son’s misdeeds upon his 
companions, she went on scolding Nacional. 

“T shall tell thy wife what thou art. The poor thing 
killing herself in her shop from daybreak till nightfall, 
and thou going off on revels like a lad. Thou shouldst 
be ashamed. At thy years! With such a troop of chil- 
dren —” 

The banderillero departed, fleeing from Sefiora Angus- 
tias, who in the storm of her indignation displayed the 
same nimble tongue as in the days when she worked in 
the Tobacco Factory. He resolved not to return to his 
master’s house. 

He met Gallardo on the street. The latter seemed ill- 
humored, but on seeing his banderillero he feigned smiles 
and animation, as if the domestic troubles made no im- 
pression upon him. 


[ 231 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


“Things are going bad, Juaniyo. I shall never go to 
thy house again, even though they try to drag me 
there. Thy mother insults me as though I were a gypsy 
of Triana. Thy wife weeps and looks at me, as though 
- it was all my fault. Man, do me the favor to not re- 
member me again. Take another associate when thou 
goest with women.” 

Gallardo smiled amiably. That was nothing. That 
would soon pass. He had faced worse trials. 

“What thou must do is to keep on coming. With 
many people there is no riot.” 

“I?” exclaimed Nacional. “To a priest’s house first!” 

The matador knew it was useless to insist after that. 
He spent most of the day out of the house, away from the 
women’s silent and tearful reproaches, and when he re-’ 
turned it was with an escort, shielding himself by his 
manager and other friends. 

One day Carmen sent for the banderillero to come to 
see her. She received Nacional in her husband’s office, 
where they could be alone, instead of in the busy court- 
yard or the dining-room. Gallardo was at his club on 
Sierpes Street. He fied from the house, and to avoid 
meeting his wife, he dined outside many days, going with 
companions to the Eritafia inn. 

Nacional seated himself on a divan, his head bowed and 
his hat in his hands, not wishing to look at his master’s 
wife. How she had failed! Her eyes were red and en- 
circled by deep, dark hollows. Her cheeks were sallow 
and the end of her nose shone with a rosy color that told 
of much rubbing with the handkerchief. 

“Sebastian, you must tell me the whole truth. You 
are good, you are Juan’s best friend. Never mind what 


[ 232 | 


A LOOK INTO THE FACE OF DEATH 


Mamita said the other day. You know how good she is. 
She speaks her mind hastily, and then it is all over.” 

The banderillero assented with a nod while awaiting her 
question. What did the Sefiora Carmen wish to know? 

“Tell me what happened at La Rincona’, what you 
saw, and what you think.” 

Ah! good Nacional! With what noble pride he held 
his head high, happy to be able to do good and to com- 
fort the forlorn soul. See? He had seen nothing wrong! 

“I swear it by my father, I swear it — by my ideas.” 

And without fear he took his oath on the most holy 
testimony of his ideas, for in reality he had seen noth- 
ing and not seeing it, he logically thought, in the pride of 
his perspicacity and wisdom, that nothing wrong could 
have happened. 

“TI think they are no more than friends — now — if 
there has been anything between them before —I don’t 
know. The people say—they talk—they invent so 
many lies! Pay no attention, Sefia’ Carmen. To be 
happy and to be alive, that is reality!” 

She insisted again. But what had happened at the 
hacienda? The hacienda was her home, and it angered 
her to see, in addition to infidelity, something that seemed 
a sacrilege, a direct insult to her person. 

“Do you think I am a fool, Sebastian? I have seen 
everything since he first began to notice that lady, or 
whatever she may be; I even knew Juan’s thoughts. The 
day he dedicated a bull to her and brought home that dia- 
mond ring I guessed what was between the two and I felt 
like grabbing the ring and stamping on it. From that 
time I have known everything, everything! There are al- 
ways people who take it upon themselves to carry tales 


[ 233 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


because they can hurt one. And besides, they have n’t 
been cautious, they have gone everywhere together, just 
like gypsies that travel from fair to fair. When I was at 
the plantation I heard about all that Juan was doing and ° 
afterward at Sanliicar, too.” 

Nacional thought it necessary to interrupt, seeing that 
Carmen was moved by these memories and was begin- 
ning to cry. 

“ And do you believe lies, child? Don’t you see they 
are the inventions of people that want to hurt him? 
Envy, nothing more.” 

“No; I know Juan. Do you think this is the first one? 
He is what he is. And he can’t be different. Cursed 
trade, that seems to turn men mad! After we had been 
married only two years he had a love affair with a girl 
from the market, a butcher girl. What I suffered when 
I found it out! But I never said a word. He still thinks 
I don’t know it. After that, how many he has had! 
Girls that dance on the stage in cafés, women of the 
street, and even lost creatures that live in public houses. 
I don’t know how many there have been— dozens! And 
I was silent, because I wished to keep peace in my home. 
But this woman he has now is not like the others. Juan 
is crazy for her; he is foolish; I know he has done thou- 
sands of humiliating things so that she, recollecting that 
she is a lady of high birth, will not throw him out into 
the street in sudden shame from having relations with a 
bull-fighter. She has gone now. Didn’t you know it? 
I found out she had gone because she is bored in Se- 
ville. She left without saying good-bye to Juan, and 
when he went to see her the other day, he found the 
door closed. And there he is, sad as a sick horse; he goes 


[ 234 ] 


A LOOK INTO THE FACE OF DEATH 


around among his friends with a funereal face and drinks 
to cheer himself up; and when he comes home he acts as 
if he had had a beating. No; he can’t forget that woman. 
The sefor was proud of having a woman of that class 
care for him and his pride is hurt at being left. Ah, how 
disgusted I am with him! He is no longer my husband. 
He seems to me a different person. We hardly ever 
speak to one another — just as if we were strangers, ex- 
cept when quarrelling. I am alone upstairs and he sleeps 
downstairs in a room off the courtyard. We shall never 
be united again, I swear it! Long ago I could overlook 
everything; they were bad habits belonging to the pro- 
fession; the bull-fighters’ mania. They believe them- 
selves irresistible to women—but now I don’t want to 
see him any more; he has become repugnant to me.” 

She spoke with energy, her eyes shining with the glow 
of hatred. 

“ Ah, that woman! How she has changed him! He is 
another man! He only cares to go with rich young fel- 
lows, and now the people of our ward and all the poor in 
Seville who were his friends, and helped him in the be- 
ginning, complain of him and some fine day they will 
raise a riot in the plaza because he is ungrateful. Money 
comes in here by the basketful, and it isn’t easy to 
count it. Not even he himself ever knows what he has, 
but I see it all. He gambles a great deal to make his new 
friends like him, he loses much; the money comes in 
one door and goes out the other. I say nothing to him. 
It is he that earns it. But he has had to ask a loan from 
Don José for things needed at the hacienda and some 
olive orchards he bought this year to add to the property 
were purchased with other people’s money. Nearly ev- 


[ 235 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


erything he earns during the coming season will go to 
pay debts. 

“ And if he should have an accident, and have to retire 
as others do! 

“He has even wanted to change me, just as he is 
changed. The sefor shows, when he comes home after 
visiting his Dofia Sol, or Dofia Devil, that his mam- 
ita and I seem to him very out of date in our shawls and 
our loose gowns such as are worn by all the daughters of 
the land. He it is who has made me wear those hats 
brought from Madrid in which I look so hideous, just 
like one of those monkeys that dance to the hand-organs. 
The maniilla is so rich! And he has bought that hell- 
wagon, that automobile, that I am always afraid to ride 
in and which smells to heaven. If we would let him he 
would even put a hat with rooster’s tails on poor Mamita. 
He is a vain fellow who thinks only of that other woman 
and wants to make us like her so that he won’t be 
ashamed of us.” 

The banderillero broke forth in protests. Not so! Juan 
was good-hearted and he did all this because he loved 
his family and wanted them to have luxuries. 

“ What you say about Juaniyo may be true, Sefia’ Car- 
men, but he must be forgiven some things. Come! How 
many there are who die with envy at sight of you! Is it 
nothing to be the wife of the bravest of all the bull-fight- 
ers, with handfuls of money and a marvel of a house, of 
which you are absolute mistress? — for the master gives 
you charge of everything!” 

Carmen’s eyes grew moist and she raised her handker- 
chief to her eyes. 

“I would rather be a shoe-maker’s wife! How often 


[ 236 ] 


A LOOK INTO THE FACE OF DEATH 


I have thought it! If only Juan had followed his trade 
instead of catching this bull-fighting mania! I would be 
happier in a poor shawl going to carry him his dinner in 
the portal where he worked as did his father. There 
would n’t be any smart girls to take him away from me; 
he would be mine; we might know want, but on Sundays, 
dressed in our best, we would go to dine at an inn. Be- 
sides, the agonies of fear those accursed bulls cause me! 
This is not living. Plenty of money, plenty! But believe 
me, Sebastian, it is like poison to me, and the more that 
comes into the house the more my blood chills. What 
are hats and all this luxury to me? People think I am 
happy and they envy me, while my eyes follow the poor 
women that have less, but who carry their babies in their 
arms and when they are in trouble forget it in looking 
into the child’s eyes and laughing with it. Ah, children! 
I know how great is my misfortune. If only we had 
children! If Juan could see a child in the house that was 
his own, all his own, something nearer than his little 
nephews! ” 

Carmen poured forth a continuous flow of tears that 
escaped through the folds of her handkerchief and bathed 
her reddened cheeks. It was the sorrow of the childless 
woman, ever envying the happy fate of mothers; the 
desperation of the wife who, on seeing her husband grow- 
ing distant to her, pretends to think it due to divers 
causes, but in the depths of her soul attributes the mis- 
fortune to her barrenness. Ah! for a son to unite them! 
And Carmen, convinced by the passing years of the fu- 
tility of this desire, was in despair and gazed enviously 
at her silent listener, to whom Nature had prodigally 
given that for which she longed in vain. 


[ 237 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


The banderillero departed from this interview with his 
head bent low and went in search of the maestro, meeting 
him at the door of the Forty-five. 

“ Juan, I have seen thy wife. The affair grows worse 
and worse. Try to make up with her, to straighten 
things out.” 

“Damn it! May sickness end her, thee, and me! This 
is not living. God permit that Sunday a bull may catch 
me and so it will all be ended! What is life worth!” 

He was partially drunk. He was desperate over the 
sullen frown he met in his house and still more (though 
he confessed it to none), over the flight of Dofia Sol 
without leaving a word for him, not even a paper with 
four lines of farewell. They had put him out of the 
door; had treated him worse than if he had been a serv- 
ant. He did not even know where the woman was. The 
Marquis had interested himself but little in his niece’s 
journey. The maddest girl! She had not told him, 
either, about her going, but not on that account would 
he think her lost in the world. She would soon give 
signs of existence from some strange country where her 
caprices had carried her. 

Gallardo did not conceal his desperation in his own 
house. At the silence of his wife, who kept her eyes 
lowered, or looked at him frowning and refusing to con- 
verse, the matador burst forth into deadly curses. 

“Damn my fate! I hope a Miura will hook me Sunday 
and shake me like a bell, and that they will bring me home 
on a stretcher!” : 

“Don’t say that, malaje!” wailed Sefiora Angustias. 
“Don’t tempt God. See if that don’t bring bad luck.” 

But the brother-in-law intervened with his sententious 


[ 238 ] 


A LOOK INTO THE FACE OF DEATH 


air, taking advantage of the opportunity to flatter the 
swordsman. 

“Never mind, Mamita. There isn’t a bull alive that 
can touch him!” 

Sunday was the last bull-fight of the year in which 
Gallardo was to work. He spent the morning without 
the vague fears and superstitious preoccupations of other 
occasions. He dressed himself joyfully, with a nervous 
excitement that seemed to augment the vigor of his arms 
and legs. What joy that he would be able to rush out 
upon the yellow sand and astound twelve thousand spec- 
tators by his gallantry and daring! His art was the only 
reality — something which awakened the enthusiasm of 
the multitudes and brought in money without measure. 
All the rest, family and love, but served to complicate 
existence and cause unhappiness. Ah! What sword- 
thrusts he was going to make! He felt the strength of a 
giant within himself. He was a different man, he had 
neither fear nor dread. He even showed impatience that 
it was not yet the hour for going to the plaza, contrary 
to other times when he had put off the dreaded moment. 
His fury at his domestic unhappiness and at that flight 
which wounded his vanity, made him long to throw him- 
self upon the bulls. 

When the carriage arrived, Gallardo crossed the court- 
yard, on this occasion, paying no attention to the 
women’s emotion. Carmen did not appear. Bah! Wo- 
men! They only serve to embitter life. Only in men did 
one find lasting affection and joyful companionship. 
There was his brother-in-law admiring himself before 
going to the plaza, happy in a street suit of the master’s 
which had been made over to his measure even before the 


[239] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


owner had worn it. In spite of being a ridiculous char- 
latan he was worth more than all the rest of the family. 
He never abandoned him. 

“Thou art finer than Roger de Flor himself,’ Gal- 
lardo told him gayly. “Get into the coach—and I'll 
take thee to the plaza.” 

His brother-in-law seated himself near the great man, 
trembling with pride as he rode along the streets of Se- 
ville, that all should see him seated among the silken 
capes and the heavy gold embroideries of the bull- 
fighters. 

The plaza was full. This important corrida at the end 
of autumn had attracted a great audience, not only from 
the city but from the country as well. Upon the 
“bleachers” in the sun were seated many people from 
the surrounding country towns. 

From the first instant Gallardo showed the nervous 
activity that possessed him. He was to be seen far from 
the barrera advancing to meet the bull, distracting him 
with his cape-work, while the picadores awaited the mo- 
ment in which the bull would attack their miserable 
horses. 

A certain antagonism of the public against the bull- 
fighter could be felt. They applauded him as usual, but 
the demonstrations of enthusiasm were more hearty and 
warm on the shady side than on the rows of seats in the 
sun, where many sat in their shirt-sleeves in the burning 
rays. 

Gallardo divined the danger, foresaw that he would 
have bad luck, and that half the ring would rise shouting 
against him, denouncing him as thankless and ungrate- 
ful to those who had elevated him. 


[ 240 ] 


A LOOK INTO THE FACE OF DEATH 


He killed his first bull with middling luck. He threw 
himself as bravely as ever between the horns, but the 
sword struck bone. His admirers applauded him. The 
thrust was well aimed and he was not to be blamed for 
the futility of his effort. But the second time he went 
in to kill, the bull, on chasing after the muleta, shook the 
blade out of the wound, sending it flying away. Then, 
taking a new sword from Garabato’s hands, he turned 
toward the wild beast, which awaited him, with forefeet 
planted forward, his neck streaming blood and his drip- 
ping mouth almost touching the sand. The maestro hold- 
ing his muleta before the bull’s eyes was tranquilly laying 
back with the point of his sword the shafts of the 
banderillas that hung over his head. He was going to kill 
him by a stab in the spinal cord. He placed the steel 
point on the top of the bull’s head, searching between the 
horns for the sensitive spot. With an effort he thrust in 
the sword and the animal shuddered painfully, but still 
kept his feet, resisting the steel with a violent tossing of 
his head. 

“One!” clamored the audience on the bleachers in 
mocking tones. 

“Damn it!” Why did those people attack him with 
such injustice? 

He raised the sword again and thrust, managing this 
time to reach the vulnerable spot. The bull fell instantly, 
as if struck by a lightning flash in.the very nerve-centre 
of his life, and he lay with his horns dug into the ground, 
his legs rigid in the air. 

The people in the shade applauded with class enthu- 
siasm, while the audience in the sun broke into hisses and 
jibes. 


[ 241 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Nino litri! Aristocrat!” 

Gallardo turned his back to these protests and saluted 
the enthusiasts with his muleta and sword. The insults of 
the populace which had always been friendly to him hurt 
him and caused him to clench his fists. 

“But what do those people want? The bull gave no 
better account of himself. Damnit! This is the work of 
enemies.” 

He passed a great part of the corrida close to the 
barrera gazing disdainfully at what his companions were 
doing, accusing them mentally of having prepared these 
marks of displeasure against him in advance. 

He also broke into curses against the bull and the 
herder that raised him. He had come so well prepared to 
do great deeds and he had encountered a beast which 
would not permit him to shine! The breeders that 
turned out such animals ought to be shot. 

When he again took up the instruments of death, he 
ordered Nacional and another of his peones to draw the 
bull with the cape toward the part of the plaza where the 
populace was seated. 

He knew the public. He must humor the citizens in 
the sun, those tumultuous and terrible demagogues who 
carried class hatred into the plaza but easily changed 
hisses into applause when a slight show of consideration 
flattered their pride. 

The peones, waving their capes at the bull, began a race 
to attract him to the sunny side of the ring. A movement 
of joyful surprise from the populace welcomed this ma- 
neeuvre. The supreme moment, the bull’s death, was to 
take place before their eyes — and not, as almost always 
_happened, at a great distance for the convenience of the 
rich who were seated in the shade. 


[ 242 ] 


A LOOK INTO THE FACE OF DEATH 


The fierce beast, as he stood alone on that side of the 
plaza, began to attack the dead body of a horse. He 
thrust his head into the open belly and raised the miser- 
able carcass on his horns like a limp rag. It fell to the 
ground, lying almost doubled, and the bull backed away 
with indecisive step. He returned again to sniff it with 
deep bellowings, while the audience laughed at his stupid 
tenacity, at this search for life in the inanimate body. 

“Jam him hard there! Thou hast lots of strength, 
boy! Keep it up, or he’ll turn on thee!” 

But every one’s attention was withdrawn from this 
venting of the bull’s fury to Gallardo who was crossing 
the plaza with a short swinging step, in one hand the 
rolled muleta, in the other flourishing his sword as though 
it were a cane. 

The entire audience in the sun applauded, grateful to 
have the swordsman come over to them. 

“ Thou hast put them into thy pocket,” said Nacional, 
who stood near the bull with the cape ready. 

The multitude gesticulated, calling to the bull-fighter 
— “Here, here!” 

Each one wished him to kill the bull before his seat 
that he might not lose the slightest detail, and the 
swordsman hesitated between the contradictory calls of 
thousands of mouths. With one foot on the vaulting 
wall of the barrier he calculated where best to end the 
bull. He must be drawn farther away. The dead horse 
seemed to fill that whole side of the plaza and disturbed 
the bull-fighter. 

He was about to order Nacional to attract the beast 
away, when he heard a familiar voice behind him, a 
voice he did not recognize but which caused him to turn 
quickly. 


[ 243 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


“ Good-afternoon, Sefior Juan. We are going to ap- 
plaud reality!” 

He saw in the first row, under the panel of the inner 
barrier, a folded jacket on the edge of the wall, a pair of 
arms in shirt sleeves crossed over it, and a broad face 
recently shaved resting in the hands, with a hat drawn 
down to the ears. He looked like a good-natured rustic, 
come from a country town to witness the bull-fight. 

Gallardo recognized him. It was Plumitas. 

He had fulfilled his promise and there he was among 
twelve thousand people who did not know him, greet- 
ing the matador, who felt a certain gratitude for this dis- 
play of confidence. Gallardo marvelled at his temerity. 
To come down to Seville, to enter the plaza, far from the 
hills and the deserts where defence was easy for him, 
without the aid of his two companions, his mare and his 
carbine, and all — to see him kill bulls! Of the two, that 
man was the brave one. He thought of his plantation 
which was at Plumitas’ mercy, of the country life which 
was only possible by maintaining good relations with 
this extraordinary personage. The bull must be for 
him. 

He smiled at the bandit, who continued contemplating 
him with placid countenance; he took off his cap.and 
shouted, turning toward the boisterous multitude, but 
with his eyes on Plumitas. 

“Vaya! In honor of you!” 

He threw his cap into the bleachers. and many hands 
were stretched out in rivalry, struggling to grasp the sa- 
cred trust. Gallardo gave signs to Nacional to bring the 
bull near him with his skilful cape-work. He extended 
his muleta and the beast attacked with sonorous bellow- 


[ 244 ] 


A LOOK INTO THE FACE OF DEATH 


ing, passing beneath the red rag. “ Olé!” roared the 
crowd, acknowledging its old idol again and disposed to 
admire all that he did. 

He continued making pases at the bull, accompanied by 
the exclamations of the people a few feet away. Seeing 
him near they gave him advice. “Take care, Gallardo! ” 
The bull was perfectly sound. He must not let himself 
get between him and the barrier. He must keep his re- 
treat clear. 

Others more enthusiastic excited him to deeds of dar- 
ing with audacious counsel. 

“Let him have one of thy best! Zas! A sword- 
thrust and thou hast him in thy pocket!” 

The animal was too big and too cautious to be put in 
the pocket. He was excited by the proximity of the 
dead horse, and kept returning to it as if the odor in- 
toxicated him. 

In one of his evolutions, the bull, tired by the muleta, 
stood motionless. Gallardo had the dead horse behind 
him. It was a bad situation, but out of worse he had 
come victorious. He wished to take advantage of the 
horse’s position. The public excited him to it. Among 
the men on the bleachers who had risen to their feet, and 
were leaning forward to lose no detail of the decisive 
moment, he recognized many popular devotees who had 
begun to cool toward him but were now applauding him 
again, moved by consideration for the populace. 

“Score a point, there! Good boy! Now we "ll see 
the real thing! Strike true!” 

Gallardo turned his head slightly to salute Plumitas, 
‘who sat smiling, his moon face peeping above his arms 
and the jacket. 


[ 245 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


“For you, comrade!” 

He squared himself with the sword presented ready to 
kill— but at that instant the earth seemed to shake and 
he felt himself hurled to a great distance; then the plaza 
fell, everything turned black, and a fierce hurricane of 
voices seemed to blow in from off the sea. His body vi- 
brated painfully, his head buzzed as if it would burst; a 
mortal anguish contracted his breast —and he fell into 
a dark and limitless void, as into the unconsciousness 
of death. 

The bull, at the very instant in which Gallardo made 
ready to thrust, had suddenly thrown himself upon him, 
attracted by the horse behind him. It was a brutal en- 
counter, in which the body of the bull-fighter with its 
silk and gold trappings rolled away and disappeared be- 
neath his feet. He did not gore him with his horns, but 
the blow was horrible, staggering. With head and horns 
the wild beast felled the man as though he had been 
struck by a sledge hammer. 

The bull, which saw only the horse, felt an obstacle 
near his feet, and scorning the dead body, turned to at- 
tack again the brilliant puppet that lay motionless on 
the sand. He raised it with one horn, tossed it some 
feet away after giving it a brief shaking, and then started 
to return to a third attack. 

The multitude, stupefied by the swiftness with which 
all this had occurred, remained silent, appalled. The bull 
was going to kill him! Perhaps he had already done so! 
Suddenly a shriek from the entire audience broke this ag- 
onizing silence. A cape was held between the wild beast 
and his victim, a rag almost thrust over its head by vig- 
orous arms which tried to blind the brute. It was Na- 


[ 246 ] 


A LOOK INTO THE FACE OF DEATH 


cional, who, in desperation, threw himself upon the bull, 
willing to be caught by him to save his master. The 
beast, stupefied by this new obstacle, charged against it, 
turning tail to the man lying on the sand. The bander- 
illero, in between the horns, ran backward, waving the 
cape, not knowing how to free himself from this perilous 
situation, but happy to see that he was drawing the bull 
away from the wounded man. 

The audience almost forgot the swordsman, so im- 
pressed was it by this new incident. Nacional was going 
to fall also; he could not get out from between the horns ; 
the wild beast already had him almost hooked. Men 
shouted as if their cries could aid him; women wailed 
with anguish, turning away their faces and clutching 
one another convulsively, until the banderillero, taking 
advantage of the moment in which the wild beast low- 
ered his head to charge, rushed from between the horns, 
stepping to one side, while the animal ran on blindly, the 
torn cape hanging before his eyes. 

Then there broke forth deafening applause. The fickle 
multitude, impressed only by the danger of the moment, 
applauded Nacional. It was one of the happiest mo- 
ments of his life. The audience, taken up with him, 
scarcely noticed Gallardo’s inanimate body as it was 
carried out of the ring, the head hanging limp, by bull- 
fighters and employees of the plaza. 

At nightfall the only subject of conversation in the 
city was Gallardo’s injury, the most terrible of his life. 
Extras were being published in many cities and news- 
papers all over Spain gave accounts of the events with 
lengthy comment. The telegraph worked as if a politi- 
cal personage had just been the victim of an assassin. 


[ 247 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Terrifying news circulated along Sierpes Street ex- 
aggerated by Southern hyperbolic commentary. Poor 
Gallardo had just died. He who gave the sad news had 
seen him in a bed in the infirmary of the plaza, white 
as paper, a cross in his hands. Another presented him- 
self with less lugubrious news. He was not dead yet, 
but he would die any moment. 

“He has lost everything! Everything! Disembow- 
elled! The brute has left the poor fellow punctured like 
a sieve.” 

Guards had been placed at the entrances to the plaza 
so that the people, anxious for news, should not invade 
the infirmary. The multitude surged outside the ring 
asking news of the master’s condition from those who 
came and went. 

Nacional, still dressed in his fighting costume, peered 
out several times, ill-humored and frowning, blustering 
and angry, because arrangements for moving the maesiro 
to his house had not been made. The people seeing the 
banderillero forgot the injured man and congratulated 
him. 

“Senior Sebastian, you have done very well. If it 
had n’t been for you—!” 

But what mattered it to him what he had done? 
All—liquid. The only thing of importance was poor 
Juan who lay in the infirmary fighting death. 

“ And how is he, Sefior Sebastian?” 

“Very bad. He has just regained his senses. He has 
one leg ground to dust; a horn-stab under the arm; and 
what more I know not! The poor boy is as dear to me 
as my patron-saint. We are going to carry him home.” 

When night fell Gallardo was taken from the ring on 


[ 248 ] 


A LOOK INTO THE FACE OF DEATH 


a stretcher. The multitude marched silently after him. 
The journey was long. Every moment Nacional, who 
walked with his cape hanging over his arm, mingling in 
his glittering bull-fighter’s dress with the vulgar crowd, 
bent over the rubber cover of the litter and ordered the 
bearers to halt. 

The doctors from the plaza walked behind and with 
them the Marquis of Moraima and Don José, who 
seemed ready to faint and fall into the arms of compan- 
ions from the Forty-five, who were all jumbled together 
and mixed in with the ragged mob that followed the bull- 
fighter. 

The crowd was in a state of consternation. It was a 
gloomy procession, as if one of those national disasters 
that overcome differences of class and level all men by 
general misfortune had taken place. 

“What a calamity, Sefior Marqués,” said a chubby- 
cheeked, blonde rustic, his jacket hanging over one 
shoulder. 

Twice he had rudely shoved away one of the stretcher 
bearers in his desire to help carry it. The Marquis 
looked at him sympathetically. He must be one of those 
country men who were accustomed to greet him on the 

‘ high-road. 

“Yes; a great calamity, boy.” 

“Do you think he will die, Sefior Marqués?” 

“They fear so—unless a miracle saves him. He is 
ground to dust.” 

The Marquis, laying his right hand on the stranger’s 
shoulder, seemed to be grateful for the sadness reflected 
in his countenance. 

The arrival at Gallardo’s house was painful. Cries of 


[ 249 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


despair arose in the courtyard. On the street, the 
women, neighbors, and friends of the family, screamed 
and tore their hair, believing Juan already dead. Potaje 
and some comrades were obliged to stand in the door- 
way scattering blows and cuffs so that the multitude 
following the stretcher should not besiege the house. 
The street was filled with a crowd that surged about 
commenting on the event. All stared at the house anx- 
ious to divine something through the walls. 

The stretcher was carried into a room off the court- 
yard and the matador was moved to a bed with great care. 
He was enwrapped in cloths and blood-stained band- 
ages that smelled of strong antiseptics. A pink stocking 
was all that remained of his fighting costume. His un- 
derclothing was torn in some places and cut by scissors 
in others. 

His coleta hung about his neck disordered and tangled; 
his face had the pallor of death. He opened his eyes as 
he felt a hand pressed into one of his and smiled slightly 
on seeing Carmen, a Carmen as white as himself, with 
dry eyes, livid lips, and an expression of dread, as if this 
were her husband’s last moment. 

Gallardo’s grave gentlemen friends prudently inter- 
vened. That could not continue; Carmen must retire. 
As yet, only preliminary treatment had been given the 
wound, and there was still much work for the doctors, 
so the wife was taken out of the room. The wounded 
man made a sign with his eyes to Nacional, who bent 
over him straining to catch his faint whisper. : 

“ Juan says,” he murmured, going out into the court- 
yard, “to telegraph to Doctor Ruiz.”. 

The manager answered, happy at his foresight that 


[ 250 ] 


A LOOK INTO THE FACE OF DEATH 


he had done so in the middle of the afternoon, as soon 
as he became convinced of the seriousness of the calam- 
ity. He was sure the doctor must already be on the way 
and would arrive the next morning. 

After this, Don José continued questioning the doc- 
tors who had treated him in the plaza, Their first, 
perturbation over, they grew more optimistic. It was 
possible he might not die. His constitution was so strong! 
The greatest thing to fear was the shock he had suffered, 
the shaking which was enough to kill another instantly ; 
but he had already come out of the first collapse and had 
recovered his senses, although his weakness was great. 
As for the wounds, they did not consider them danger- 
ous. That on the arm was a slight thing; perhaps it 
would be less agile than before. As for the leg, there 
was less hope. The bone was fractured; Gallardo might 
be left lame. 

Don José, who had made every effort to be impassive 
when, hours before, the swordsman’s death was consid- 
ered inevitable, shuddered on hearing this. His matador 
lame? Then he could never again fight bulls! He was 
indignant at the calmness with which the doctors talked 
of the possibility of Gallardo’s being left useless for 
bull-fighting. 

“That cannot be. Do you think it logical that Juan 
will live and not fight bulls? Who would take his place? 
It cannot be, I say! The greatest man in the world, 
and they want him to retire!” 

He spent the night watching with the men of the cua- 
drilla and Gallardo’s brother-in-law. The next morning 
he rushed to the station. The express from Madrid ar- 
rived and on it Doctor Ruiz. He came without baggage, 


[ 251 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


dressed with his usual carelessness, smiling beneath his 
yellowish white beard, his big abdomen shaking like a 
Buddha, in his loose waistcoat, with the movements of 
his short legs. He had received the news in Madrid as 
he was coming away from a fight of young bullocks ar- 
ranged to introduce a certain boy from Las Ventas. It 
was a clownish exhibition which had greatly amused 
him and he laughed after a night of weariness in the 
train, remembering this grotesque corrida, as if he had 
forgotten the object of his journey. 

As he entered the sick room the bull-fighter, who 
seemed overcome with weakness, opened his eyes and 
recognized him, and his face lighted with a smile of con- 
fidence. Ruiz, after listening in a corner to the whispers 
of the doctors who had given first aid, approached the 
invalid with a resolute air. 

“ Courage, my good fellow, thou are not going to die 
of this! Thou hast ever such rare luck!” 

And then he added, turning to his colleagues: “ But 
what a magnificent animal this Juanillo is! Any other, 
by this time, would not have left us anything to do.” 

He examined him with care. A bad horn-wound; but 
he had seen many worse! In cases of sickness that he 
called ordinary, he vacillated undecided, not venturing to 
express an opinion. But the goring of a bull was his 
speciality and he always expected the most remarkable 
recoveries, as if the horns gave the wound and the rem- 
edy at once. 

“The man that does n’t die in the ring itself,” he said, 
“ can almost say he is saved. The cure is just a question 
of time.” 

For three days Gallardo was subjected to atrocious 


[ 252 | 


A LOOK INTO THE FACE OF DEATH 


operations and groaned with pain, for his weak state 
did not permit of the use of anesthetics. Doctor Ruiz 
extracted various splinters from one leg, fragments of 
the fractured shin-bone. 

“ Who said thou wouldst be left useless for fighting? ° 
exclaimed the doctor, happy in his skill. “Thou wilt 
fight bulls again, son; the public will still be obliged to 
applaud thee much.” 

The manager assented to these words. He had 
thought the same. Could that youth, who was the great- 
est man in the world, die thus? 

By Doctor Ruiz’ order, the bull-fighter’s family had 
moved to Don José’s house. The women bothered him; 
their proximity was intolerable during operating hours. 
A moan from the bull-fighter was enough to awaken in- 
stant response from all parts of the house; the mother’s 
and sister’s screams were like painful echoes. Carmen 
had to be held by force, and she fought like a mad woman 
in her desire to go to her husband’s side. 

Grief had changed the wife, making her forget her ani- 
mosity. Often her tears were caused by remorse, for 
she believed herself the unconscious author of the 
calamity. 

“The fault is mine; I know it,” she said in despair to 
Nacional. ‘“ He said over and over again he wished a 
bull would gore him to finish it all! I have been very 
wicked. I have embittered his life.” 

In vain the bandcrillero recounted the event in all its 
details to convince her that the calamity had been acci- 
dental. No; Gallardo, according to her, had wanted to 
end his life, and had it not been for the banderillero, he 
would have been carried out of the ring dead. 


[ 253 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


When the operations were over, the family returned to 
the house. Carmen entered the wounded man’s room 
with a light step and lowered eyes, as if ashamed of her 
former hostility. 

“How art thou?” she asked, clasping one of Juan’s 
hands between both her own. She remained thus, silent 
and timid in the presence of Dr. Ruiz and other friends 
who stayed by the sick man’s bedside. Had she been 
left alone perhaps she would have knelt beside her hus- 
band asking his forgiveness. Poor fellow! She had 
made him desperate by her cruelty, sending him to his 
death. She wished to forget it all. And her simple soul 
looked out of her eyes with self-abnegation, her humility 
mingled with wifely love and tenderness. 

Gallardo seemed to have grown smaller with so much 
suffering ; he was thin, pale, and shrunken. Nothing was 
left of the arrogant youth who fired the public with his 
daring. He complained of his inactivity and of his use- 
less leg, heavy as lead. The terrible operations he had 
undergone in full consciousness seemed to have made 
him a coward. His fortitude in bearing pain had dis- 
appeared and he groaned at the slightest molestation. 

His room was like a place of reunion through which 
the most celebrated connoisseurs of the city passed. The 
smoke of their cigars was mingled with the stench of 
iodoform and strong liniments. Bottles of wine that 
had been presented by the callers stood on the tables 
among medicine flasks and packages of cotton and band- 
ages. 3 

“ That is nothing,” shouted his friends, wishing to en- 
courage the bull-fighter with their noisy optimism. “ In- 
side of a couple of months thou wilt be fighting bulls 


[ 254 ] 


A LOOK INTO THE FACE OF DEATH 


again. Thou hast fallen into good hands. Doctor Ruiz 
works miracles.” 

The doctor was equally encouraging. 

“We have a man on our hands again. Look at him; 
he is smoking. And a sick man that smokes — ” 


[ 255 ] 


CHAPTER XI 
DOCTOR RUIZ ON TAUROMACHY 


AR into the night the doctor, the manager, and 

members of the cuadrilla kept the wounded man 
company. When Potaje came he sat near the table try- 
ihg to keep the bottles within reach of his hand. The 
conversation between Ruiz, the manager, and Nacional 
was always about bulls. It was impossible to be with 
Don José and talk of anything else. They commented 
on all bull-fighters’ defects, discussed their merits and 
the money they earned, while the convalescent listened 
in forced inactivity or fell into a drowsy torpor stupefied 
by the murmur of conversation. 

Generally the doctor was the only one who talked, fol- 
lowed in his pompous argument by Nacional’s grave 
and admiring eyes. “Bull-fighting is an evolution,” 
said he. “Dost thou understand, Sebastian? A de- 
velopment from the customs of our country, a modifica- 
tion of the popular diversions which Spaniards of olden 
times were given to; those times of which Don Joselito 
must often have talked of to thee.” 

Dr. Ruiz, with a glass in one hand, talked and talked, 
only stopping to take a sip. 

The idea that bull-fighting as we know it is an ancient 
sport is nothing but a tremendous lie. They killed wild 
beasts in Spain for the diversion of the people but bull- 
fighting did not then exist as it is known to-day. The 


[ 256 ] 


DOCTOR RUIZ ON TAUROMACHY 


Cid speared bulls skilfully and Christian and Moorish 
gentlemen diverted themselves in the bull-ring, but bull- 
fighting as a profession did not exist nor did they send 
the animals to a noble death according to rules. 

The doctor related the history of the national sport 
for centuries past. Only on rare occasions, when kings » 
married, when a treaty of peace was signed, or a chapel 
in a cathedral was dedicated, were such events as bull- 
fights celebrated. There was no regularity in the repeti- 
tion of these feasts, nor were there any professional 
fighters. Titled gentlemen dressed in costumes of silks} 
went into the bull-ring mounted on their chargers to 
spear the beast, or to fight it with lances before the eyes 
of the ladies. If the bull managed to throw them off 
their horses they drew their swords, and with the assist- 
ance of their lackeys put it to death, wounding it where- 
ever they could, without conforming to any rules. When 
the corrida was for the people the multitude descended 
into the arena, attacking the bull en masse until they suc- 
ceeded in routing it, killing it by dagger thrusts. 

“Bullfights did not exist,’ continued the doctor. 
“That was hunting wild cattle. In fact, the people had 
other occupations, and reckoned on other sports peculiar 
to their epoch, and did not need to perfect this 
diversion.” 

The warlike Spaniard had a sure means of making his 
career in his incessant wars in divers parts of Europe, 
and the exploration of the Americas always called for 
valiant men. Moreover, religion afforded frequent emo- 
tional spectacles, full of the thrill provided by the sight 
of suffering in others by which indulgences for the soul 
could be obtained. The sentences pronounced by the 


[ 257 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Inquisition and the burning of human beings at the stake 
were spectacles that took away interest in games with 
mere wild animals. The Inquisition became the great 
national festival. 

“ But there came a day,” continued Doctor Ruiz with 
a fine smile, “in which the Inquisition began to lose 
ground. Everything comes to an end in this world. It 
finally died of old age, long before the reform statutes 
suppressed it. It wore itself out; the world had changed 
_and such diversions became something like what a bull- — 
fight in Norway would be among the snows and beneath 
the gloomy sky. They lacked atmosphere. They began 
to be ashamed of burning men, with all the pomp of ser- 
mons, ridiculous vestures, and recantations. They no 
longer dared pass Inquisition sentences. When it was 
necessary to show that it still existed they contented 
themselves with beatings given behind closed doors. 
At the same time we Spaniards, weary of roving over the 
world in search of adventure, began to stay at home. 
There were no longer wars in Flanders or in Italy; the 
conquest of America, with its continual embarkation of 
adventurers, terminated, and then it was that the art of 
bull-fighting began, that permanent plazas were con- 
structed and cuadrillas of professional bull-fighters were 
formed; the game was adjusted to rules, and the feats 
of banderillas and of killing, as we know them to-day, were 
recognized. The multitude found the sport much to its 
liking. Bull-fighting became democratic when it was 
converted into a profession. Gentlemen were substituted 
by plebians who demanded pay for exposing their lives, 
and the people flocked to the bull-rings of their own 
free will, and dared to insult from their seats in the 


[ 258 | 


‘ 


DOCTOR RUIZ ON TAUROMACHY 


plaza the very authority which inspired their terror in 
the streets. The sons of those who had frequented with 
religious and intense enthusiasm the burning of heretics 
and the baiting of Jews gave themselves up to witness- 
ing, with noisy shouts, the struggle between the man 
and the bull, in which only occasionally death comes to 
the man. Is this not progress?” 

Ruiz insisted on his idea. In the middle of the eight- 
eenth century when Spain retired within herself, re- 
nouncing distant wars.and new colonizations, and when 
religious cruelty languished for lack of atmosphere, then 
was the time when bull-fighting flourished forth. Popu- 
lar heroism needed new heights to scale for notoriety and 
fortune. The ferocity of the multitude, accustomed to 
orgies of death, needed a safety valve to give expansion 
to its soul, educated for centuries to the contemplation 
of torture. The Order of the Inquisition was replaced by 
the bull-fight. He who a century before would have 
been a soldier in Flanders, or a military colonizer in the 
solitudes of the New World, became a bull-fighter. The 
people, finding their avenues of expansion closed, saw 
in the new national sport a glorious opening for all the 
ambitious ones who had valor and courage. 

“It was progress!” continued the doctor. “That 
seems clear to me. So I, who am revolutionary in every- 
thing, am not ashamed to say I like the bulls. Man 
needs a spice of wickedness to enliven the monotony of 
existence. Alcohol is bad also and we know it does us 
harm, but nearly all of us drink it. A little savagery now 
and then gives one new energy to go on living. We all 
like to take a look into the past once in a while and live 
the life of our remote ancestors. Brutality renews those 


[ 259 | 


4 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


mysterious inner forces that it is not well to let die. 
You say bull-fights are barbarous? So they are; but 
they are not the only barbarous sport in the world. The 
turning to violent and savage joys is a human ailment 
that all people suffer equally. For that reason I am in- 
dignant when I see foreigners turn contemptuous eyes on 
Spain, as if such things only existed here.” 

And the doctor railed against horse-races, in which 
many more men are killed than in bull-fights; against 
fox hunting with trained dogs, witnessed by civilized 
spectators; against many modern games out of which 
the champions come with broken legs, fractured skulls, 
or flattened noses; against the duel, fought in the ma- 
jority of cases without other cause than an unhealthy 
desire for publicity. 

“The bull and the horse,” railed Ruiz, “ bring to tears 
the very people that don’t raise the slightest outcry in 
their own countries when they see a racing animal fall 
in the hippodrome, ruptured, or with broken legs, the 
very people who think the establishment of a zodlogical 
garden the complement to the beauty of every great 
city.” 

Doctor Ruiz was indignant because, in the name of civ- 
ilization, bull-fights were anathematized as barbarous and 
sanguinary, while in the name of the same civilization 
the most useless as well as harmful animals on earth 
were lodged and fed and warmed in princely luxury. 
Why is that? Science knows them perfectly and has 
them catalogued. If their extermination is objected to, 
one must still protest against the dark tragedies that 
take place every day in the cages in the zodlogical parks, 
the goat bleating piteously as he is thrust defenceless 


[ 260 | 


DOCTOR RUIZ ON TAUROMACHY 


into the panther’s den, to be crushed to death by the wild 
beast burying his claws in the victim’s entrails, and his 
chops in his steaming blood; timid rabbits, torn from 
the mountain’s fragrant peace, trembling at the breath 
of the boa which hypnotizes them with its eyes and 
winds the coils of its grotesque rings about them. Hun- 
dreds of poor animals which should be protected because 
of their weakness die to sustain absolutely useless fero- 
cious wild beasts that are kept and feasted in cities which 
boast of belonging to the higher civilization; and from 
these same cities insults are hurled against Spanish cru- 
elty, because brave and expert men, following rules of 
undisputed wisdom, kill a proud and fearful wild beast 
face to face, in broad day, beneath the blue heavens, in 
the presence of a noisy, gay-colored multitude, adding 
the charm of picturesque beauty to the emotion of dan- 
ger. Vive Dios! 

“They insult us because we have become weak,” said 
Ruiz, waxing indignant over what he considered univer- 
sal injustice. ‘“ Our world is like a monkey that imitates 
the gestures and joys of the one he respects as a master. 
Just now England leads, and both hemispheres approve 
horse-racing; crowds stupidly gather to watch lank 
nags run around a race-track, a spectacle that could not 
be surpassed in insipidity. If in the days of Spain’s su- 
premacy bull-fighting had been as popular as to-day, 
there would now be bull-rings in many European coun- 
tries. Don’t talk to me about the superior foreigners! 1 
admire them because they have made revolutions, and 
we owe much of our thought to them; but regarding 
bulls, heavens, man, they talk nothing but nonsense! ” 

And the vehement doctor, with the blindness of fanati- 


[ 261 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


cism, condemned in his execration everybody on the 
planet who abominated the Spanish sport while at the 
same time they upheld other sanguinary diversions which 
cannot even justify themselves with the pretext of 
beauty. 

After a stay of ten days in Seville the doctor had to 
return to Madrid. 

“Well, young fellow,” he said to the sick man, “thou 
dost not need me now and I have a great deal to do. 
Don’t be imprudent. After two months thou wilt be 
well and strong. It is possible thou mayest be a little 
stiff in the leg, but thou hast a constitution of iron and 
thou wilt mend.” 

Gallardo’s recovery took place within the time set by 
Ruiz. When at the end of a month his leg was freed 
from its enforced quiet, the bull-fighter, weak and limp- 
ing slightly, could go out and sit in an arm-chair in the 
courtyard, where he received his friends. 

During his illness, when the fever was high and he 
was lost in delirium, one thought, ever the same, held 
firm in the midst of his imaginative wanderings. Dofia 
Sol — did that woman know of his misfortune? 

While he was still in bed he ventured to ask his mana- 
ger about her one day when they were alone. 

“Yes, man,” said Don José, “she has thought of thee. 
She sent me a telegram from Nice, asking about thy 
health three days after the accident. Doubtless she 
heard of it through the newspapers. They have talked 
about thee everywhere, as if thou wert a king.” 

The manager had answered the telegram but had 
heard nothing from her since. 

Gallardo was satisfied with this news for some days 


[ 262 ] 


DOCTOR RUIZ ON TAUROMACHY 


but then he began to ask again, with the insistence of a 
sick man who thinks the whole world interested in the 
state of his health. Had she not written? Had she not 
asked for more news of him? The manager tried to ex- 
cuse Dojfia Sol’s silence and thus console his matador. He 
must remember that the lady was always travelling. 
How could any one know where she might be at that 
moment? 

But the bull-fighter’s sorrow at thinking himself for- 
gotten obliged Don José to lie out of pity. Days before 
he had received a short note from Italy in which Dofia 
Sol asked for news of the wounded man. 

“Let me see it,” said Gallardo eagerly. 

When he pretended to have forgotten it at home, Gal- 
lardo implored him, “ Bring it to me. I so long to see 
her writing, to convince myself that she remembers me.” 

To avoid new complications, Don José invented 
a correspondence which never reached his hands 
because it was directed to some one else. Dofia Sol 
wrote, according to him, to the marquis in regard to 
business connected with her fortune, and at the end of 
every letter she asked about Gallardo’s health. Again, 
the letters were to a cousin of hers and in them was the 
same thought of the bull-fighter. 

Gallardo heard this news joyfully but at the same time 
shook his head with a doubtful expression. When would 
he see her again! Would he ever see her? Ah, that 
erratic woman, who had flown without reason at the 
caprice of her strange disposition! 

“What thou shouldst do,” said the manager, “is to 
forget women and think about business a little. Thou 
art no longer in bed. How dost thou feel in regard to 


[ 263 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


strength? Tell me, shall we fight bulls or not? Thou 
hast the rest of the winter in which to grow strong. 
Shall we accept contracts to fight this year, or shall we 
refuse? ” 

Gallardo raised his head proudly, as if something dis- 
honorable had been proposed to him. Give up bull- 
fighting? Pass a year without being seen in the ring? 
Was it possible the public could be resigned to such an 
absence? 

“ Accept, Don José. From now till spring there is 
time to get strong. I will fight whatever they put be- 
fore me. You can make a contract for the Easter bull- 
fight. It seems to me this leg is going to give me a good 
deal of trouble, but by then, God willing, I’ll be as if 
made of iron.” 

It was two months before the bull-fighter grew strong. 
He limped slightly and felt less agility in his arms; but 
he made light of these troubles as insignificant when he 
began to feel the power of health reanimating his vig- 
orous body. 

Finding himself alone in his wife’s room (for he had 
returned to it when he abandoned the sick chamber), he 
stood before a mirror and squared himself as though 
facing a bull, placing one arm above the other in the 
form of a cross as though holding the sword and muleta 
in his hands. Zas!/ A sword-thrust at the invisible bull. 
To the very hilt! He smiled proudly thinking how his 
enemies were going to be deceived, those who prophesied 
his immediate decadence whenever he was gored. 

It would be a long time yet before he could enter the 
ring. He longed for the glory of applause and the accla- 
mation of the multitudes with the eagerness of a begin- 


[ 264 | 


SSL ee 


DOCTOR RUIZ ON TAUROMACHY 


ner,— as though the recent injury had closed a past ex- 
istence; as if the former Gallardo were another man 
while now he had to begin his career anew. 

He decided to pass the rest of the winter at La Rin- 
conada with his family, to gain strength. Hunting and 
long trips would improve his broken leg. Besides, he 
would ride on horseback overseeing the work, he would 
visit the flocks of goats, the herds of swine, the droves 
of cattle and horses pastured in the meadows. The ad- 
ministration of the plantation was not getting on well. 
Everything cost him more than other proprietors and 
the profits were less. It was the estate of a bull-fighter 
of generous habits accustomed to earning great quanti- 
ties of money without knowing the restriction of econ- 
omy. His travels during a part of the year, and his 
accident, which had brought stupefaction and disorder 
into his house, caused business to go awry. 

Antonio, his brother-in-law, who had established him- 
self at the plantation for a season with the airs of a 
dictator intending to set everything in order, had only 
impeded the progress of the work and provoked the ire 
of the laborers. Fortunately Gallardo counted on certain 
returns from the bull-fights, an inexhaustible source of 
wealth for repairing his prodigality. 

Before leaving for La Rinconada Sefiora Angustias 
begged her son to go and kneel before the Virgin of 
Hope. It was to fulfil a promise she had made in that 
dismal twilight when she had seen him brought home 
upon a stretcher, pale and motionless as a dead man. 
How often had she wept before the Macarena, the beau- 
tiful Queen of Heaven with her long lashes and olive 
cheeks, asking her not to forget her poor Juanillo! 


[ 265 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


The occasion was a popular event. The gardeners of 
the Macarena ward were called upon by the master’s 
mother, and the Church of San Gil was filled with flowers 
arranged in tall heaps like pyramids on the altars, or 
hanging in garlands between the arches and suspended 
from the lamps in great clusters. 

The sacred ceremony took place one bright morning. 
In spite of its being a week-day the church was filled 
with the best families of the nearby wards; stout women 
with black eyes and short necks, with waists and hips 
outlined in coarse curves, wearing black silk gowns with 
lace maniillas over their pale faces; workmen recently 
shaven, in new suits, round hats, and with great gold 
chains on their waistcoats. Beggars came in bands as 
if a wedding were to be celebrated and stood at the doors 
of the temple in double file. The good wives of the 
ward, unkempt and with babies in their arms, formed 
groups, impatiently awaiting the arrival of Gallardo 
and his family. 

A mass was to be sung with accompaniment of orches- 
tra and voices, something extraordinary, like the opera 
in the theatre of San Fernando at Christmas time. Then 
the priests would sing the Te Deum as a thanksgiving for 
the recovery of Sefior Juan Gallardo, just as when the 
king entered Seville. 

The coriége appeared making its way through the 
crowd. The bull-fighter’s mother and wife, with rela- 
tives and friends, walked in advance, while the heavy 
silk of their skirts rustled as they passed, smiling sweetly 
beneath their maniillas. 

Behind came Gallardo, followed by an interminable es- 
cort of bull-fighters and friends, all dressed in. light col- 


[ 266 | 


DOCTOR RUIZ ON TAUROMACHY 


ors, with chains and rings of amazing splendor, wearing 
on their heads white felt hats which contrasted with the 
blackness of the feminine headgear. 

Gallardo was grave. He was a sincere believer. He 
thought little about God and blasphemed Him in difficult 
moments with the automatism of custom; but this was a 
different thing; he was going to give thanks to the Most 
Holy Macarena, and he entered the temple with an air of 
pious compunction. 

All went in except Nacional, who abandoned his wife 
and offspring and remained outside in the churchyard. 

“Tam a free-thinker,” he believed the time opportune 
to declare before a group of friends. “I respect all be- 
liefs; but what is going on inside, for me is—liquid! I 
don’t want to be lacking in respect to the Macarena, 
nor to rob her of her due, but, comrade, if I had not ar- 
rived in time to attract the bull away when Juaniyo was 
stretched on the ground —!” . 

The sound of the instruments was borne out to the 
churchyard, with the voices of the singers, a sweet, vol- 
uptuous harmony, accompanied by breaths of perfume 
from the flowers and the odor of wax candles. 

The bull-fighters and devotees of Gallardo who were 
gathered outside the temple smoked cigarette after cigar- 
ette. From time to time some of them strayed off to 
while away the time in the nearest tavern. 

When the company came forth again the poor ap- 
peared smiling and gesticulating, their hands full of coin. 
There was money for all. The maestro Gallardo was 
liberal. 

Sefiora Angustias wept, with her head reclining on a 
friend’s shoulder. 


[ 267 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


At the door of the church the matador, smiling and 
magnificent, gave his arm to his wife, who walked tremu- 
lous with emotion and with lowered eyes, a tear quivering 
on her lashes. 

Carmen felt as if she had just been married a second 
time. 


| 268 ] 


CHAPTER XII 
AIRING THE SAINTS 


A° Holy Week drew near, Gallardo gave his mother 
a great joy. In former years the swordsman used 
to join the procession of the San Lorenzo parish as a 
devotee of Our Lord Jesus of the Great Power, dressed 
in a black tunic with a tall hood and a mask that left 
only his eyes visible. It was a gentleman's fraternity, 
and the bull-fighter, finding himself on the road to for- 
tune, had joined it, forsaking popular brotherhoods in 
which devotion was accompanied by drunkenness and 
scandal. 

Gallardo talked with pride of the seriousness of this 
religious association. Everything was orderly and well 
disciplined, as in the army. On the night of Holy Thurs- 
day, when the clock on San Lorenzo was striking the 
second stroke of two at break of day, the doors opened 
instantaneously and the whole interior of the temple, full. 
of lights and with the fraternity in line, appeared before 
the eyes of the multitude which was crowded together 
in the darkness of the churchyard. 

The black-cowled figures, silent and gloomy, with no 
other expression of life than the glitter of their eyes be- 
hind the dark mask, advanced two by two with slow 
step, keeping a wide space between pair and pair, grasp- 
ing their torches of livid flame and trailing their long 
tunics on the floor. 


[ 269 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


The multitude, with that impressionability inherent in 
Southern peoples, contemplated intently the passing of 
the hooded brethren whom they called Nazarenes, mys- 
terious maskers who perhaps were great gentlemen, 
moved by traditional devotion to figure in this nocturnal 
procession which ended immediately at sunrise. 

It was a silent fraternity. The Nazarenes must not 
speak, and they marched escorted by municipal guards 
who took care that the importunate should not molest 
them. Drunkards abounded in the multitude. There 
wandered through the streets tireless devotees who, in 
memory of the Passion of Our Lord, began on Holy 
Wednesday to demonstrate their piety by walking from 
tavern to tavern, and did not reach the last station until 
Saturday, in which they took final refuge after innumer- 
able falls by the way which had been for them likewise a 
sort of Via Dolorosa. 

As the members of the fraternity, sentenced to silence 
under heavy penalty, marched along in procession, the 
drunken concourse drew near and murmured in their 
ears the most atrocious insults against the maskers and 
their families, whom perhaps they did not know. The 
Nazarene held his peace and suffered in silence, swallow- 
ing the outrages and offering them as a sacrifice to the 
Lord of Great Power. But these troublesome fellows, 
like flies that would not be driven away, incited to fur- 
ther activity by this meekness, redoubled their offensive 
buzzing until at last some pious masker thought that, 
although silence was obligatory, inaction was not, and 
without speaking a word, raised the torch and struck a 
drunkard who had disturbed the sacred order of the 
ceremony. : 


[ 270 | 





AIRING THE SAINTS 


During the course of the procession, when the bearers 
of the statues halted for rest and the heavy platforms of 
the images hung about with lanterns stood still, at a light 
hiss the hooded brethren stopped, the couples standing 
face to face, with the flambeau resting on one foot, gaz- 
ing at the crowd through the masks with their myste- 
rious eyes. They were like gloomy apparitions escaped 
from an Inquisition sentence, grotesque beings seeming 
to shed perfumes of incense and stench of burning flesh. 

The mournful blast of the copper trumpets sounded, 
breaking the silence of the night. Above the points of 
the hoods the pennants of the fraternity, squares of black 
velvet edged with gold fringe, moved in the breeze; the 
Roman anagram, S. P. Q. R., recalled the intervention of 
the Prefect of Judea in the death of the Saviour. 

The image of Our Father Jesus of the Great Power ad- 
vanced on a heavy platform of wrought metal with black 
velvet hangings that grazed the ground, hiding the feet 
of the twenty sweaty, half-naked men who walked be- 
neath carrying it. Four groups of lanterns with golden 
angels shone at the corners; in the centre was Jesus, a 
Jesus tragic, painful, bleeding, crowned with thorns, 
bent beneath the weight of the cross, his face cadaverous 
and his eyes tearful, dressed in an ample velvet tunic so 
covered with golden flowers that the rich cloth could 
scarcely be distinguished beneath the delicate arabesque 
in the complicated design of the embroidery. 

The presence of the Lord of the Great Power called 
forth sighs from hundreds. “ Father Jos!” murmured 
the old women, their eyes fixed on the image with hyp- 
notic stare. “ Lord of the Great Power! Remember us!” 


[ 271 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


The image rested in the centre of a plaza with its 
escort of hooded inquisitionists, and the devotion of the 
Andalusian people, which confides all conditions of its 
soul to song, greeted the float with bird-like trills and 
interminable lamentations. 

An infantile voice of tremulous sweetness broke the 
silence. It was a young woman who, advancing through 
the crowd until she stood in the first row, broke into a 
- saeta to Jesus. The three verses of the song were for the 
Lord of Great Power, for the most divine statue, and for 
the sculptor Montafiés, one of the great Spanish artists 
of the golden age. 

This saeta was like the first shot of a battle that starts 
an interminable outburst of explosions. Hers was not 
yet ended when another was heard from a different quar- 
ter, and another and another, as if the plaza were a great 
cage of mad birds which, on being awakened by the voice 
of a companion, all joined in song at once in bewilder- 
ing confusion. Masculine voices, grave and hoarse, 
united their sombre tones to the feminine trilling. 
All sang with their eyes fixed on the image, as if 
they stood alone before it, forgetting the crowd that 
surrounded them, deaf to the other voices, with- 
out losing place or hesitating in the complicated 
trills of the sacta, which made discord and mingled in- 
harmoniously with the chanting of the others. The 
hooded brethren listened motionless, gazing at the Jesus, 
who received these warblings without ceasing to shed 
tears beneath the weight of the cross and the stinging 
pain of the thorns, until the conductor of the image, de- 
ciding that the halt be over, rang a silver bell on the 
fore-end of the platform. “Arise!” The Lord‘of Great 


[ 272 ] 


AIRING THE SAINTS 


Power, after several vibrations, rose higher and the feet 
of the invisible bearers began to move along the ground 
like tentacles. 

Next came the Virgin, “ Our Lady of the Greater Sor- 
row,” for every parish paraded two images — one of the 
Son of God and the other of His Holy Mother. Beneath 
a velvet canopy the golden crown of the Lady of Greater 
Sorrow trembled, surrounded by lights. The train of her 
mantle, many yards long, fell behind the image, held out 
by a kind of wooden hoop-skirt, showing the splendor 
of its heavy embroideries, glittering and costly, on which 
the skill and patience of an entire generation had been 
spent. 

The hooded brethren, with sputtering torches, escorted 
the Virgin, the reflection of their lights trembling on 
this regal mantle which filled the scene with glittering 
splendor. To the sound of the double beat of drums 
marched a group of women, their bodies in shadow and 
their faces reddened by the flame of the candles they car- 
ried in their hands; old women in maniillas, with bare 
feet; young women dressed in white gowns originally 
intended as winding-sheets; women who walked with 
difficulty as though suffering from painful maladies —a 
whole battalion of suffering humanity, delivered from 
death through the mercy of the Lord of Great Power and 
His Most Holy Mother, walking behind their images to 
fulfil a vow. 

The procession, after marching slowly through the 
streets, with long halts accompanied by songs, entered 
the cathedral, which remained open all night. The de- 
file of lights on entering the enormous naves of this tem- 
ple brought out from obscurity the gigantic columns 


[ 273 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


wrapped in purple hangings edged with lines of gold, 
without dissipating the thick darkness of the vaulted 
roof. The hooded men marched like black insects in the 
ruddy light of the torches below, while night was still 
massed above. They went out into the starlight again, 
leaving this crypt-like obscurity, and the sun surprised 
the procession in the open street, extinguishing the bril- 
liancy of their torches, causing the gold of the holy vest- 
ments and the tears and sweat of agony on the images 
to glisten in the light of dawn. 

Gallardo was devoted to the Lord of the Great Power 
and to the majestic silence of his fraternity, but this 
year he decided to parade with those of the Macarena 
who escorted the miraculous Virgin of Hope. 

Sefiora Angustias was overjoyed when she heard his 
decision. Well did he owe it to this Virgin for having 
saved him from his last goring. Besides, this flattered 
her sentiments of plebian simplicity. 

“Every one with his kind, Juaniyo. Thou goest with 
the upper class, but remember that the poor always loved 
thee and that they had begun to talk against thee, think- 
ing that thou didst despise them.” 

The bull-fighter knew it too well. The tumultuous 
populace which occupied the bleachers in the plaza had 
begun to show a certain animosity toward him, think- 
ing themselves forgotten. They criticised his inter- 
course with the rich and his drawing away from those 
who had been his first admirers. To overcome this an- 
imosity, Gallardo took advantage of every opportunity, 
flattering the rabble with the unscrupulous servility of 
those who must live by public applause. He had sent for 
the most influential brethren of the Macarena to explain 


[ 274 ] 





NT a a a Bi 


AIRING THE SAINTS 


to them that he would be in the procession. The people 
must not know of it. He did it asa devotee and wished 
his act to remain a secret. But in a few days, nothing 
else was discussed in the whole ward. The Macarena 
would be carried this year in great beauty! They 
scorned the rich devotees of the Great Power with its 
orderly, insipid procession, and they gave attention only 
to their rivals of the boisterous Triana on the other side 
of the river, who were so arrogant over their objects of 
devotion, Our Lady of Protection and Christ of the Ex- 
piration, whom they called the Most Holy Cachorro. 

Gallardo collected all his own and his wife’s jewels 
to contribute to the Macarena’s splendor. In her ears 
he would put some pendants of Carmen’s which he had 
bought in Madrid, investing in them the profits of sev- 
eral bull-fights. On her breast she should wear his chain 
of rolled gold, and hanging from it all his rings and the 
great diamond buttons which he put in his shirt bosom 
when he went out dressed in courtly style. 

“ Josi! How fine our brunette will be,” said the women 
of the neighborhood speaking of the Virgin. “Senor 
Juan is running everything. Half Seville will go mad 
with enthusiasm.” 

The matador believed in the Virgin and with devout 
egoism he wished to enter into her favor in view of future 
dangers, but he trembled as he thought of the jokes of 
his friends when they gathered in the cafés and societies 
on Sierpes Street. : 

“ They will cut off my coleta if they recognize me. But 
one has to get along with everybody.” 

On Holy Thursday he went to the cathedral at night 
with his wife to hear the Miserere. The temple, with its 


[ 275 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


stupendously high vaulted arches, was without other 
light than that of the ruddy glow from the candles on 
the columns. The people of the better class were caged 
behind the grilles of the chapels on the sides, avoiding 
contact with the sweaty crowd that surged in the naves. 
The lights destined for the musicians and singers shone 
from out the obscurity of the choir like a constellation 
of red stars. Eslava’s Miserere sent forth its sweet Italian 
melodies into this awesome atmosphere of shade and 
mystery. It was an Andalusian Miserere, somewhat play- 
ful and gay, like the flapping of bird wings, with ro- 


mances like love serenades and choruses like revellers’ _ 


roundelays, the joy of living in a fair land that causes 
forgetfulness of death and protests against the sorrow 
of the Passion. 

When the tenor’s voice ended the last romance and 
his lamentations were lost in the vaulted ceiling, apos- 
trophizing the deicide city, “ Jerusalem, Jerusalem!” the 
crowd scattered, desiring to return as soon as possible 
to the streets, which had the aspect of a theatre, with 
the electric lights, their rows of chairs on the sidewalks, 
and their boxes in the plazas. 

Gallardo returned home to dress himself as a Naza- 
rene. Sefiora Angustias had given much care to his cos- 
tume, which took her back to the days of her youth. Ah! 
her poor husband, who on this night had put on his 
warlike trappings and, throwing his lance over his 
shoulder, had gone out into the streets not to return 
till the following day, when he came back with his helmet 
dented and his armour covered with filth, after having 
camped with his brothers-in-arms in all the taverns in 
Seville! 


[ 276 ] 





AIRING THE SAINTS 


The swordsman cared for his underwear with feminine 
scrupulousness. He paid the Nazarene costume the 
same attentions he gave a fighting dress on a bull-fight 
afternoon. He put on silk stockings and patent leather 
shoes, and the white sateen gown prepared by his 
mother’s hands, and over this the pointed cape of green 
velvet that fell from his shoulders to his knees, like a 
chasuble. The coat of arms of the fraternity was richly 
and carefully embroidered with a profusion of colors 
on one side of the breast. Then he drew on white gloves 
and grasped a tall cane, emblem of dignity in the fra- 
ternity; a staff covered with green velvet and tipped with 
silver. 

In a narrow street Gallardo met the procession of the 
Company of the Jews, a troop of men in coats of mail, 
who, eager to show their warlike discipline, kept step 
as they marched in time to a drum that beat ceaselessly. 
They were young men and old, with their countenances 
framed by the metallic chin-straps of the helmet, wear- 
ing wine-colored habits, flesh-colored cotton hose, and 
high sandals. They wore the Roman sword at the belt, 
and, to imitate modern soldiers, the cord that held their 
lances hung from one shoulder, like a gun-case. At the 
head of the company floated the Roman banner with its 
senatorial inscription. 

The procession marched with traditional slowness, 
stopping whole hours at the crossways. They did not 
value time. It was twelve o’clock at night and the Ma- 
carena would not return to her abode until twelve on 


the following morning, taking more time to travel about 


the city than is needed to go from Seville to Madrid. 
First came the paso of the “Sentence of Our Lord 


[ 277 ] , 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Jesus Christ,” a float filled with figures representing 
Pilate seated on a golden throne surrounded by soldiers 
in colored skirts and plumed helmets, watching the sad 
Jesus soon to march to the place of execution in a tunic 
of brown velvet covered with embroideries, and three 
golden plumes that signified rays of divinity above his 
crown of thorns. This paso proceeded without attracting 
attention, as if humbled by the proximity of the one 
that came after, the Queen of the popular wards, the 
miraculous Virgin of Hope, the Macarena. When the 
Virgin with the rosy cheeks and long lashes left San 
Gil beneath a trembling canopy of velvet, bowing with 
the movement of the hidden bearers, a deafening ac- 
clamation arose from the multitude that surged through 
the small plaza. But how pretty the great Sefiora! She 
never grew older! 

The mantle, splendid, immense, with heavy gold em- 
broidery that resembled the meshes of a net, hung be- 
hind the float, like the wide-spread tail of a gigantic pea- 
cock. Her glass eyes shone as if filled with tears of 
emotion in response to the acclamations of the faithful, 
and to this glitter was added the scintillation of the 
jewels that covered her body, forming an armor of gold 
and precious stones over the embroidered velvet. She 
- seemed sprinkled with a shower of luminous drops, in 
which flamed all the colors of the rainbow. From her 
neck hung strings of pearls, chains of gold with dozens 
of rings linked together that scattered magic splendors 
as she moved. The tunic and the front of the mantle 
were hung with gold watches fastened on with pins, 
pendants of emeralds and diamonds, rings with enor- 
mous stones like luminous pebbles. All the devotees 


[ 278 ] 


ee eee ee oe es 


| 


AIRING THE SAINTS 


sent their jewels that they might light the most Holy 
Macarena on her journey. The women exhibited their 
hands divested of ornaments on this night of religious 
sacrifice, happy to have the Mother of God display jewels 
that were their pride. The public knew them from hav- 
ing seen them every year. That one which the Virgin 
displayed on her breast, hanging from a chain, belonged 
to Gallardo, the bull-fighter. But others shared the pop- 
ular honors along with him. Feminine glances devoured 
rapturously two enormous pearls and a strand of rings. 
They belonged to a girl of the ward who had gone to 
Madrid two years before, and being a devotee of the 
Macarena, returned to see the feast with an old gentle- 
man. The luck of that girl—! 

Gallardo, with his face covered, and leaning on a staff, 
the emblem of authority, marched before the paso with 
the dignitaries of the brotherhood. Other hooded broth- 
ers carried long trumpets adorned with green bannerets 
with fringes of gold. They raised the mouthpiece to an 
aperture in the masks, and an ear-splitting blast, an 
agonizing sound, rent the silence. But this hair-raising 
roar awoke no echo of death in the hearts that beat 
around them. 

Along the dark and solitary cross-streets came whiffs 
of springtime breezes laden with garden perfumes, the 
fragrance of orange blossoms, and the aroma of flowers in 
pots ranged behind grilles and balconies. The blue of the 
sky paled at the caress of the moon which rested on a 
downy bed of clouds, thrusting its face between two. 
gables. The melancholy defile seemed to march against 
the current of Nature, losing its funereal gravity at each 
step. In vain the trumpets sounded lamentations of 


[ 279 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


death, in vain the minstrels wept as they intoned the 
sacred verses, and in vain the grim executioners kept step 
with hangman’s frown. The vernal night laughed, scat- 
tering its breath of perfumed life. No one dwelt on death. 

Enthusiastic Macarenos surrounded the Virgin like a 
troop of revellers. Gardeners came from the suburbs 
with their dishevelled women who dragged a string of 
children by the hand, taking them on an excursion last- 
ing until the dawn. Young fellows of the ward with new 
hats and with curls smoothed down over their ears flour- 
ished clubs with warlike fervor, as though some one were 
likely to display lack of respect for the beautiful Lady, 
so that the support of their arm would be necessary. All 
jostled together, crowding into the narrow streets be- 
tween the enormous paso and the walls, but with their 
eyes fixed on those of the image, talking to her, hurling 
compliments to her beauty and miraculous power with 
the inconsistency produced by wine and their frivolous 
bird-like minds, 

“Olé, la Macarena! The greatest Virgin in the world! 
She who excels all other Virgins!” 

Every fifty steps the sacred platform was halted. 
There was no hurry. The journey was long. At many 
houses they demanded that the Virgin stop so that they 
could gaze on her at leisure. Every tavern keeper also 
asked for a pause at the door of his establishment, al- 
leging his rights as a citizen of the ward. A man crossed 
the street directing his steps toward the hooded brethren 
with the staffs who walked in advance of the float. 

“Hold! Let them stop! For here is the greatest 
singer in the world who wishes to sing a couplet to the 


Virgin.” 
[ 280 ] 


AIRING THE SAINTS 


“The greatest singer in the world,” leaning against 
one friend, and handing his glass to another, advanced 
toward the image with shaking legs, and after clearing 
his throat delivered a torrent of hoarse sounds in which 


_trills obliterated the clarity of the words. It could only 


be understood that he sang to the “ Mother,” the Mother 
of God, and as he uttered this word, his voice acquired 
additional tremors of emotion with that sensibility to 
popular poesy that finds its most sincere inspiration in 
maternal love. 

Another and then another voice was heard, as if the 
minstrel had started a musical contest; as if the street 
were filled with invisible birds, some hoarse and rasping, 
others shrill, with a penetrating screech that suggested 
a red and swollen throat, ready to burst. Most of the 
singers kept hidden in the crowd, with the simplicity of 
devotion that does not crave to be seen in its manifesta- 
tions; others were eager to exhibit themsleves, plant- 
ing themselves in the midst of the crowd before the holy 
Macarena. 

When the songs ended the public burst into vulgar 
exclamations of enthusiasm, and again the Macarena, the 
beautiful, the only, was glorified, and wine circulated in 
glasses around the feet of the image; the most vehement 
threw their hats at her as if she were a real girl, a pretty 
girl, and it was not clear now whether it was the fervor 
of the faithful who sang to the Virgin, or a pagan orgy 
that accompanied her transit through the streets. 

In advance of the float went a youth dressed in a violet 
tunic and crowned with thorns. He trod the bluish pav- 
ing stones with bare feet and marched with his body 
bowed beneath the weight of a cross twice as big as him~- 


[ 281 | 


en 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


self, and when after a long wait he rejoined the float, good 
souls aided him to drag his burden. 

The women wept with tender compassion as they saw 
him. Poor boy! With what holy fervor he performed 
his penance. Every one in the ward remembered his 
sacrilegious crime. Accursed wine, that turns men mad! 
Three years before, on the morning of Holy Friday, 
when the Macarena was about to retire to her church 
after having wandered all night through the streets of 
Seville, this sinner, who was really a good boy and had 
been revelling with his friends overnight, had compelled 
the float to stop at a tavern on the plaza of the market- 
place. He sang to the Virgin, and then, possessed of a 
holy enthusiasm, burst into endearing expressions, Olé! 
Pretty Macarena! He loved her more than his sweet- 
heart! To better express his faith, he threw at her feet 
what he had in his hand, thinking it was his hat, and a 
wine glass burst on the handsome face of the great 
Lady. They took him weeping to the police station. But 
he loved the Macarena as if she were his mother! It was 
the accursed wine that made men do they knew not 
what! He trembled with fear at the years of imprison- 
ment awaiting him for disrespect to religion; he shed 
tears of repentance for his sacrilege; until finally, even 
the most indignant interceded in his favor and the matter 
was settled by his promise to give an example to sin- 
ners by performing an extraordinary penance. Sweaty 
and panting he dragged the cross, changing the position 
of the burden when one of his shoulders became numbed 
by the painful weight. His comrades pitied him; they 
dared not laugh at his penance, and they compassion- 
ately offered him glasses of wine. But he turned his eves 


[ 282 ] 





AIRING THE SAINTS 


away from the offering, fixing them on the Virgin to 
make her a witness to his martyrdom. He would drink 
the next day without fear, when the Macarena was left 
safe in her church. 

The float halted in a street of the ward of the Feria, 
and now the head of the procession had reached the 
centre of Seville. The green-hooded brethren and the 
company wearing the coats of mail advanced with war- 
like mien like an army marching to attack. They wished 
to reach Campana Street and take possession of the en- 
trance to Sierpes Street before another fraternity should 
present itself. The vanguard once in control of this po- 
sition could tranquilly await the Virgin’s arrival. The 
Macarenos each year made themselves masters of the 
famous street and took whole hours to pass through it, 
enjoying the impatient protests of the fraternities of 
other wards. 

Sierpes Street was converted into a sort of reception 
hall with the balconies thronged with people, electric 
globes hanging from wires strung from wall to wall, 
and all the cafés and stores illuminated; the windows 
were filled with heads, and rows of chairs along the 
walls, with crowds, rising in their seats each time the 
distant trumpeting and beating of the drums announced 
the proximity of a float. 

It was three in the morning and nothing indicated the 
lateness of the hour. People were eating in cafés and 
taverns. The thick odor of oil escaped through the 
doors of the places where fish was frying. Itinerant 
venders stationed themselves in the centre of the street 
crying sweets and drinks. Whole families who only 
came to light on occasions of great festivity, had been 


[ 283 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


there from two o’clock in the afternoon watching the 
passing of processions and more processions. There 
were Virgins with mantles of overwhelming sumptuous- 
ness which drew shouts of admiration by their display of 
velvet; Redeemers, crowned with gold and wearing vest- 
ments of brocade, and a whole world of absurd images 
whose tragic, bleeding, or tearful faces contrasted with 
the theatrical luxury and richness of their clothing. 
Foreigners, attracted by the strangeness of this Christian 
ceremony, joyous as a pagan feast in which there were 
no faces of woe and sadness but those of the images, 
heard their names called out by Sevillians seated near 
them. The floats started off — those of the Sacred De- 
cree of the Holy Christ of Silence; of Our Lady of.Sor- 
rows; of Jesus with the Cross on His Shoulder; of Our 
Lady of the Valley; of Our Father Jesus of the Three 
Falls; of Our Lady of Tears; of the Lord of Good Death; 
and of Our Lady of the Three Necessities, accompanied 
by Nazarenes black and white, red, green, blue and vio- 
let, all masked, hiding their mysterious personality be- 
neath their pointed hoods. 

The heavy platforms advanced slowly and with great 
difficulty because of the narrowness of the street. On 
reaching the plaza of San Francisco, opposite the view- 
ing stand built in front of the Government palace, the 
floats made a half-turn until they stood facing the images 
and by a genuflexion of their bearers they saluted the 
illustrious strangers and royal personages gathered to 
witness the feast. 

Near the floats marched boys with pitchers of water. 
The catafalque had scarcely stopped when a fold of the 
velvet hangings which hid its interior was raised and 


[ 284 ] 


AIRING THE SAINTS 


twenty or thirty men appeared, sweaty, purple from fa- 
tigue, half naked, with handkerchiefs bound around their 
heads, and looking like tired savages. They were the 
so-called “ Galicians,” in which geographic appellative 
are confounded all lusty workmen whatever may be 
their origin, as though the other sons of the country were 
not capable of constant or fatiguing labor. They greed- 
ily drank the water, or, if there were a tavern near, they 
rebelled against the director of the float and demanded 
wine. Thus the festivities were prolonged through the 
whole night, frivolous, gay, and theatrical. In vain the 
brass horns sent forth their death-laments proclaiming 
the greatest of crimes, the unjust death of a God. Nature 
did not respond to this traditional sorrow. The river 
went purling on beneath the bridges, spreading its 
luminous sheet through the silent fields; the orange 
trees, incense-givers of the night, opened their thou- 
sand white mouths and shed the fragrance of voluptuous 
fruit upon the air; the palms waved their clusters of 
plumes over the Moorish ramparts of the Alcazar; the 
Giralda, a blue phantom, vanished in the heavens, eclips- 
ing stars and hiding a portion of the sky behind its 
shapely mass; and the moon, intoxicated by nocturnal 
perfumes, seemed to smile at the earth swollen with the 
nutrient sap of spring, at the luminous furrow-like 
streets of the city in whose ruddy depths swarmed a 
multitude content just to be alive, which drank and sang 
and found a pretext for interminable feasting in a tragic 
death of long ago. 

At the door of a café stood Nacional with all his 
family watching the passing of the brotherhood. “ Su- 
perstition and ignorance!” But he followed the custom, 


[ 285 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


coming every year to witness the invasion of Sierpes 
Street by the noisy Macarenes. 

He immediately recognized Gallardo by his genteel 
bearing and the athletic jauntiness with which he wore 
the inquisitorial vestment. 

“ Juanillo; have the procession stop. There are some 
foreign ladies in the café who want to get a good look 
at the Macarena.” 

The sacred platform came to a halt; the band played 
a gay march, one of those that enlivens the audience at 
the bull-ring, and immediately the hidden conductors of 
the float commenced to raise one leg in unison, 
then the other, executing a dance that made the cata- 
falque move with violent undulations, crowding the peo- 
ple against the walls. The Virgin, with the burden of her 
heavy mantle, jewels, flowers, and lanterns, danced to the 
music. This exhibition was the result of practice and 
one which was the pride of the Macarenos. The good 
youths of the ward, holding both sides of the float, sup- 
ported it during this violent commotion and shouted with 
enthusiasm at this exhibition of strength and skill. 

“Let all Seville come to see this! It is great! This 
only the Macarenos do!” 

And when the music and the undulations ceased and 
the float again stood still there was thunderous applause 
mingled with impious and vulgar compliments to the 
Most Holy Macarena. They shouted vivas to the Most 
Holy Macarena, the sainted, the only. 

The brotherhood continued on its triumphal march, 
leaving stragglers in every tavern and fallen on every 
street. The sun, as it rose, surprised it far from the 
parish at the extreme opposite side of Seville, made the 


[ 286 | 





ae 


ee ee a 


ee a ae a ee a 


AIRING THE SAINTS 


jewelled armor on the image scintillate with its first rays, 
and lighted up the livid countenances of the Nazarenes 
who had taken off their masks. The image and her at- 
tendants, overtaken by the dawn, resembled a dissolute 
troop returning from an orgy. The two floats were 
abandoned in the middle of the street near the market, 
while the whole procession took an eye-opener in the 
nearby taverns, substituting great glasses of Cazalla and 
Rute brandy for native wine. The hooded brethren’s 
white garments were now filthy rags; nothing but mis- 
erable relics remained of the brilliant “Jewish” army 
which looked as though returning from a defeat. The 
captain walked with unsteady step, the melancholy 
plumes fallen over his livid countenance, his only 
thought to defend his glorious raiment from being 
rubbed and pulled to pieces. Respect the uniform! 
Gallardo left the procession soon after sunrise. He 
had done enough in accompanying the Virgin all night 
and surely she would take it into account. Besides, this 
last part of the feast, until the Macarena entered San 
Gil, now nearly midday, was the most disagreeable. The 
people who arose fresh and tranquil from sleep jested 
at the hooded brethren so ridiculous in the sunlight, 
dragging along in their drunkenness and filth. It was 
not prudent for a matador to be seen with them. 
Sefiora Angustias kept watch for him in the courtyard 
and helped the Nazarene take off his vestments. He 
must rest after having fulfilled his duty to the Virgin. 
Easter Sunday he was to have a bull-fight; the first 
after his accident. Accursed trade! For him rest was 
impossible, and the poor women, after a period of tran- 
quillity, saw their old fears and anguish renewed. 


[ 287 ] 


CHAPTER XIII 
THE MASTERY OF SELF-PRESERVATION 


ATURDAY and Sunday morning Gallardo re- 
ceived calls from enthusiastic connoisseurs from 
outside Seville who had come for the fiestas of Holy Week 
and to the Feria. All were smiling, confident of his 
future heroism. 

“Well see how thou ’lt stand up! The devotees have 
their eyes fixed on thee. How is thy strength?” 

Gallardo did not doubt his vigor. The months spent 
in the country had strengthened him. He was now as 
strong as before he had been gored. The only thing that 
made him recall his accident when hunting on the planta- 
tion was a certain weakness in the wounded leg. But 
this he only noticed after long trips. 

“T’ll do all I know how to do,” murmured Gallardo. 
“T don’t think I’ll be altogether bad.” 

The manager put in a word with the mad blindness of 
his faith. 

“ Thou ‘It flourish like the roses themselves — like an 
angel.” 

Then, forgetting the bull-fight for a moment, they 
commented on a piece of news that had just circulated 
through the city. 

On a mountain in the province of Cérdova the civil 
guard had found a decomposed body with a head muti- 
lated and almost blown off by a gun-shot. It was impos- 


[ 288 ] 





MASTERY OF SELF-PRESERVATION 


sible to recognize it, but the clothing, the carbine, all 
made them believe it was Plumitas. Gallardo listened in 
silence. He had not seen the bandit since his accident, 
but he remembered him well. His plantation hands had 
told him that while he was in danger Plumitas twice 
presented himself at La Rinconada to inquire for his 
health. Afterward, while living there with his family, 
herders and laborers spoke to him several times myste- . 
riously about Plumitas, who, when he met them on the 
highway and learned that they were from La Rinconada, 
gave them greetings for Sefior Juan. Poor man! Gal- 
lardo pitied him, recalling his predictions. The civil 
guard had not killed him. He had been assassinated 
while asleep. He had perished at the hands of one of 
his kind, of one of his followers, seeking notoriety. 
Sunday his departure for the plaza was more trying ~ 
than ever. Carmen made strong efforts to be calm and 
was even present while Garabato dressed the maestro. 
She smiled, with a sad smile; she feigned gayety, think- 
ing she noticed in her husband an equal anxiety which 
he also tried to hide under a forced exhilaration. \Sefiora 
Angustias paced up and down outside the room to see , 
her Juan once more, as though she were about to lose’ 
him. When Gallardo went out into the courtyard with 
his cap on and his cape over his shoulder the mother 
threw her arms around his neck, shedding tears. She 
did not utter a word, but her heavy sobs revealed her 
thoughts. To fight for the first time after his accident, 
in the same plaza where he had been gored! The 
superstition of the woman of the people rebelled against 
this foolhardiness. Ah! When would he retire from 
the accursed trade? Had he not enough money yet? 


[ 289 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


But the brother-in-law intervened with authority as 
the grave family counsellor. “Come, Mamita, this does 
not amount to so much —a bull-fight like all the others! 
Juan must be left in peace and his serenity must not be 
upset by this continual crying just as he is to start for 
the plaza. 

Carmen accompanied her husband to the door; she 
wished to encourage him. Besides, since her love had 
been reawakened by the accident and she and Juan had 
again been living happily together, she would not believe 
that a new misfortune would come to disturb her joy. 
That goring was an act of God, who often brings good 
out of ill, and He wished to draw them together again 
by this means. Juan would fight bulls as before and 
would come home well and sound. 

“ Good luck to thee!” 

With loving eyes she watched the carriage that drove 
away followed by a troop of ragamuffins. When the poor 
woman was left alone she went up to her room and 
lighted candles before an image of the Virgin of Hope. 

Nacional rode in the coach at his master’s side, frown- 
ing and gloomy. That Sunday was election day, but 
his companions in the cuadrilla had not heard of it. The 
people only talked of Plumitas’ death and of the bull- 
fight. The banderillero had remained with his fellow 
committeemen until past mid-day, “working for the 
idea.” Accursed corrida that came to interrupt his duties 
as a good citizen, preventing him from taking to the 
polls several friends who would not vote if he did not 
go for them. Only “those of the idea” went to the 
voting places; the city seemed to ignore the existence 
of the elections. There were great groups in the streets 


[ 290 ] 


MASTERY OF SELF-PRESERVATION 


arguing passionately; but they only talked of bulls. 
What people! Nacional recollected with indignation the 
schemes and outrages of the opposition to bring about 
this neglect of civic duty. Don Joselito, who had pro- 
tested with all his forensic eloquence, was in prison with 
other companions. The banderillero, who would gladly 
have shared their martyrdom, had been obliged to aban- 
don them, to put on his glittering costume and follow his 
master. Was this outrage to good citizens to go unre- 
buked? Would not the people rise in retaliation? 

As the coach passed the vicinity of Campana Street the 
bull-fighters saw a great crowd flourishing clubs and 
heard them shouting. The police, sabres in hand, were 
charging upon them, receiving blows and returning them 
two for one. 

Ah, at last! The moment had arrived! 

“The revolution! The fight is on!” 

But the maestro, half smiling, half angry, pushed him 
back into his seat. 

“Don’t be a fool, Sebastian; thou seest nothing but 
revolutions and hobgoblins everywhere.” 

The members of the cuadrilla smiled, divining the 
fact that it was only the noble people, angered at not be- 
ing able to get tickets for the bull-fight at the office on 
Campana Street, and who now wanted to attack and burn 
it, but were held in check by the police. Nacional sadly 
hung his head. 

“Reaction and ignorance! The lack of knowing how 
to read and write.” 

They arrived at the plaza. A noisy ovation, an in- 
terminable outburst of hand-clapping, greeted the ap- 
pearance of the cuadrillas in the ring. All@the applause 


[ 297 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


was for Gallardo. The public hailed his first appearance 
in the arena after the terrible injury that had caused so 
much talk all over the Peninsula. 

When the moment came for Gallardo to kill his first 
bull the explosion of enthusiasm was repeated. The wo- 
men in white mantillas watched him from the boxes 
‘with their glasses. On the “bleachers” they applauded 
and acclaimed him, as did those in the shade. Even his 
enemies were won by this sympathetic impulse. Poor 
boy! He had suffered so much! The plaza was all his 
own. Gallardo had never seen an audience so completely 
given over to himself. 

He took off his cap before the president’s box to 
offer his bull. Olé! Olé! No one heard a word, but all 
were wild with enthusiasm. He must have said very 
fine things. The applause accompanied him when he 
turned toward the bull, and hushed in expectant silence 
when he stood near the wild beast. He extended the 
muleta, standing planted before the creature, but at some 
distance, not as on former occasions, when he had fired 
the audience by thrusting the red rag almost into the 
animal’s eyes. In the silence of the plaza there was a 
movement of surprise—but no one spoke. Gallardo 
stamped the ground several times to incite the animal, 
and at last the bull attacked mildly, barely passing be- 
neath the muleia, for the bull-fighter hurriedly moved 
aside with shameless precipitation. The people looked at 
one another in surprise. What was that? 

The matador saw Nacional at his side and not far off 
another peon of the cuadrilla, but he did not shout, “ Stand 
aside, everybody!” On the great tiers of seats a murmur 
arose, the ri@ise of vehement conversation. Gallardo’s 


[ 292 ] 





MASTERY OF SELF-PRESERVATION 


friends thought it well to explain in the name of their 
idol. 

“He is not wholly recovered yet. He ought not to 
fight. That leg —don’t you see it? n 

The two lackeys’ capes assisted the swordsman in his 
pases. The animal moved in confusion between the red 
cloths and no sooner had he attacked the muleta than he 
noticed the cape-work of another bull-fighter, distracting 
his attention from the swordsman. Gallardo, as if eager 
to get out of the situation quickly, squared himself with 
his sword held high, and threw himself upon the bull. 

A murmur of stupefaction followed the stroke. The 
sword was plunged in less than a third of its length, and 
hung vibrating, ready to fall out of the neck. Gallardo 
had jumped back from the horns, without burying his 
sword down to the hilt as he used to do. 

“But it is well placed!” shouted his partisans, point- 
ing to the sword, and they applauded clamorously to 
make up in noise for lack of numbers. 

The “intelligent ” smiled with pity. That boy was go- 
ing to lose the only notable thing he had—valor, dar- 
ing. They had seen him bend his arm instinctively at 
the moment of walking up to the bull with the sword; 
they had seen him turn away his face with that move- 
ment of terror that impels men to close their eyes to hide 
a danger. 

The sword rolled along the ground and Gallardo, tak- 
ing another, turned upon the bull again accompanied by 
his peones. Nacional’s cape was ever ready to be spread 
out before him, to distract the wild beast; besides, the 
bellowing of the banderillero confused the bull and made 
him turn whenever he drew near to Gallardo. 


[ 293 ] ea 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Another thrust of the same kind, more than half of 
the steel blade remaining in sight. 

“He does n’t get close!” they began to protest on the 
tiers of seats. “ He’s afraid of the horns!” 

Gallardo extended his arms before the bull, his body 
making the figure of the cross, as if giving the audience 
behind him to understand that the animal already had 
enough with that thrust and would fall at any moment. 
But the wild beast remained standing, shaking his head 
from side to side. 

Nacional, exciting him with the rag, made him run, 
taking advantage of every opportunity to beat him on 
the neck lustily, with all the force of his arm. The audi- 
ence, divining his intentions, began to protest. He was 
making the animal run so that the motion would 
work the sword in deeper. His heavy blows with his 
cape were to drive in the sword. They called him a 
thief; they alluded to his mother with ugly words, im- 
pugning the legitimacy of his birth; menacing clubs 
waved above the “bleachers” in the sun; oranges and 
bottles began to fly into the arena, but he acted as if 
deaf and blind to this shower of insults and projectiles, 
and kept on chasing the bull with the satisfaction of one 
who fulfils his duty and saves a friend. 

Suddenly a stream of blood gushed from the beast’s 
mouth, and he doubled up his forelegs and knelt motion- 
less but with his head high, ready to get up and attack. 
The puntillero came up eager to finish him and get the 
maestro out of his embarrassing position. Nacional helped 
him, leaning cunningly against the sword and driving it 
in up to the hilt. The people in the sun, who saw this 
manceuvre, rose to their feet with angry protest. 


[ 294 | 


animal moved in confusion between the red cloths 
drawing him far away from the swordsman 





iene th ae 


My 





MASTERY OF SELF-PRESERVATION 


“Thief! Assassin!” 

They protested in the name of the poor bull, as though 
he were not destined to die at all hazards; they threat- 
ened Nacional with their fists, as though they had 
witnessed a crime, and the banderillero, with bowed head, 
finally took refuge behind the barrier. Gallardo, mean- 
while, walked toward the president’s box to salute him, 
and his undaunted admirers accompanied him with a din 
of applause. 

“e’s had bad luck,” they said with ardent faith, 
refusing to be undeceived. “But the sword-thrusts, 
how well aimed! No one can dispute that.” 

Gallardo went and stood an instant before the seats 
where sat his most fervent partisans, and leaned against 
the barrier, making his explanations. The bull was bad; 
it was impossible to make a good job’ of him. His enthu- 
siasts, Don José at their head, assented to these excuses, 
which were the same that they themselves had invented. 

During a great part of the bull-fight Gallardo remained 
on the vaulting wall of the barrera. Such explanations 
might suffice for his partisans, but he felt a cruel doubt, 
a lack of self-confidence, the like of which he had never 
known before. The bulls seemed bigger, as if possessed 
of double life, giving them greater resistance against 
death. They used to fall beneath his sword with such 
miraculous ease. No, they had let the worst of the 
herd out for him to disconcert him. An intrigue of his 
enemies! Another suspicion dwelt confusedly in the ob- 
scure depths of his mind, but he did not wish to con- 
sider it close; he had no interest in extracting it from its 
mysterious shade. His arm seemed shorter the mo- 
ment he held it before him with the sword. It used to 


[ 295 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


reach the wild beast’s neck with the swiftness of a light- 
ning flash; now the distance seemed interminable, a 
terrifying void which he knew not how to bridge. His 
legs also seemed to be other and different, to live apart, 
with a will of their own, independent of the rest of his 
body. In vain he ordered them to remain quiet and firm 
as before. They did not obey. They seemed to have 
eyes, to see the danger, to spring with unwonted light- 
ness, without the self-control to stand still when they 
felt the vibrations of the air stirred by the rush of the 
wild beast. 

In the blindness of his rage at his own sudden weak- 
ness Gallardo blamed the public for his mortification. 
What did these people want? — that he should let himself 
be killed to give them pleasure? Signs enough of mad 
audacity he bore on his body. He did not need to prove 
his courage. That he was alive was due to a miracle, 
thanks to celestial intervention, to God’s goodness, and 
to his mother’s and his poor little wife’s prayers. He 
had seen the dry face of Death as few see it, and he knew 
the worth of life better than any other. 

“Perhaps you think you’re going to take my scalp!” 
he thought, while he contemplated the multitude. 

He would fight bulls in future as did many of his 
friends, some days he would do it well, others ill. Bull- 
fighting was nothing but a trade, and once the highest 
places were gained the important thing was to live and 
keep oneself out of danger as best one could. He was 
not going to let himself be caught merely for the pleasure 
of having the people give tongue to his courage. 

When the moment came for killing his second bull, 
these thoughts inspired a quiet courage within him. No 


[ 296 ] 


MASTERY OF SELF-PRESERVATION 


animal should finish him! He would do all he could 
without placing himself within reach of the horns. As he 
strode up to the wild beast he wore the same arrogant 
mien as on his great afternoons. “Stand aside, every- 
body!” 

The crowd stirred with a murmur of satisfaction. He 
had said, “Stand aside, everybody!” He was going to 
do some of his greatest feats. But what the public ex- 
pected did not take place, nor did Nacional cease walk- 
ing behind him, his cape over his arm, divining, with the 
cunning of an old pedén accustomed to bull-fighters’ artful 
tricks, the theatrical falseness of his master’s command. 
Gallardo held the rag some distance away from the bull 
and began to make pases with visible caution, each time re- 
maining at a good distance from the wild beast and 
aided always by Sebastian’s cape. 

As he stood an instant with his muleta held low the bull 
made a movement as if to charge, but did not stir. The 
swordsman, excessively alert, was deceived by this 
movement and sprang backward, fleeing from the animal 
that had not attacked him. This needless retreat placed 
him in a ridiculous position and part of the audience 
laughed, while others uttered exclamations of surprise. 
Some hisses were heard. 

“ Ouch, he ’ll catch thee!” shouted an ironic voice. 

‘* Sarasa!” groaned another with effeminate intonation. 

Gallardo reddened with fury. This to him! And in 
the plaza of Seville! He felt the bold heart-throb of 
earlier days and a mad desire to fall blindly upon the 
bull and to let happen whatever God willed. But his 
body refused to obey him! His arm seemed to think; 
his legs saw the danger, mocking the demands of his 


[ 297 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


will with their rebellion! Yet the audience, resenting 
the insult, came to his aid and imposed silence. Treat 
a man thus who was convalescing from a serious injury! 
This was unworthy the plaza of Seville! Let it be seen 
if there were such a thing as decency ! 

Gallardo made the most of this sympathetic compas- 
sion, to extricate himself from the difficulty. Walking 
sideways beside the bull, he stabbed him with a sidelong 
treacherous plunge. The animal fell like a slaughter- 
house beast, a stream of blood gushing out of his mouth. 
Some applauded without knowing why, others hissed, 
and the great mass remained silent. 

“They have let insidious dogs out to him!” ciam- 
ored the manager from his seat, although the corrida was 
supplied with bulls from the Marquis’ own herd. “ Why, 
those are not bulls! We shall see what he will do the 
next time, when he has truly noble beasts.” 

Gallardo noted the silence of the crowd as he left 
the plaza. The groups near him passed without a greet- 
ing, without one of those acclamations with which they 
used to receive him on happier afternoons. The miser- 
able gang that stays outside the plaza awaiting news, 
and before the finish of the corrida knows all its incidents, 
did not even follow the carriage. 

Gallardo tasted the bitterness of defeat for the first 
time. Even his banderilleros rode frowning and silent like 
soldiers in retreat. But when he reached home and felt 
around his neck his mother’s arms, Carmen’s, and even 
his sister’s, and his little nephews’ caresses as they 
hugged his legs, he felt his dejection vanish. Curse it! 
The important thing was to live; to keep his family 
happy; to earn the public’s money as other bull-fighters 


[ 298 ] 


MASTERY OF SELF-PRESERVATION 


did without those daring deeds which sooner or later 
would cause his death. 

The next few days he felt that he ought to exhibit 
himself and talk with his friends in the popular cafés 
and clubs on Sierpes Street. He thought he could im- 
pose a courteous silence upon his detractors and prevent 
comment on his ill success. He spent whole afternoons 
in the gatherings of humble admirers he had abandoned 
long before when seeking the friendship of the rich. 
And finally he entered the Forty-five where the manager 
imposed his opinions by loud talking and gesticulation, 
upholding Gallardo’s glory as of old. 

Great Don José! His enthusiasm was immovable, 
bomb-proof! It never occurred to him that his matador 
could cease to be all that he had believed. Not one 
criticism, not one reproach for his downfall! Instead he 
took it upon himself to excuse him, adding to this the 
consolation of his good advice. 

“Thou still dost feel thy wound. What I say is, ‘ You 
shall see, when he is quite well, and you will talk differ- 
ently then.” Thou wilt do as before — thou wilt walk 
straight up to the bull, with that courage God has given 
thee, and, zas/ a stab up to the cross — and thou wilt put 
him in thy pocket.” 

Gallardo approved with an enigmatical smile. “Pat 
the bulls in his pocket!” He desired nothing else. But, 
alas! they had become so big and unmanageable! They 
had grown during the time of his absence from the arena! 

Gambling consoled him and made him forget his 
troubles. He went back with fresh passion to losing 
money over the green table, impelled by that spirit of 
youth which was undaunted by lack of luck. One night 


[ 299 |] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


they took him to dine at’ the Eritafia Inn where there 
was a great revel in honor of three foreign women of 
the gay life whom some of the young men had met In 
Paris. They had come to Seville to see the feasts of 
Holy Week and the Feria, and they were eager for the 
picturesque features of the country. Their beauty was 
somewhat faded, but was retouched by the arts of the 
toilet. The rich young fellows pursued them, attracted 
by their exotic charm, soliciting generous favors which 
were seldom refused. They expressed a wish to know a 
celebrated bull-fighter, one of the smartest matadores, that 
fine Gallardo whose picture they had so often looked at 
in the papers and on match-boxes. After having seen 
him in the plaza they had asked their friends to present 
him. 

The gathering took place in the great dining-room of 
the Eritafia, a salon opening on the garden with tawdry 
Moorish decorations, a poor imitation of the splendors 
of the Alhambra. Here balls and political banquets were 
held. Here they toasted the regeneration of the country 
with fervent oratory, and here the charms of the fair sex 
were displayed to the rhythm of the tango, and the twang- 
twang of the guitars, while kisses and screams were 
heard in the corners, and bottles were uncorked lavishly. 
Gallardo was received like a demi-god by the three 
women who, ignoring their friends, stared only at him, 
and disputed for the honor of sitting beside him, caress- 
ing him with the eyes of she-wolves in the mating sea- 
son. They reminded him of another — of the absent, the 
almost forgotten one — with their golden hair, their ele- 
gant gowns, and the atmosphere of perfumed and tempt- 
ing flesh which seemed to envelope him in a swirl of 
intoxication. \ 


[ 300 ] 


MASTERY OF SELF-PRESERVATION 


His comrades’ presence further contributed to mak- 
ing this memory more vivid. They were all Donia Sol’s 
friends; some of them even belonged to her family and 
he had looked upon them as relatives. 

They ate and drank with that savage voracity of noc- 
turnal feasts, to which people go with the fixed intention 
of excess in everything, taking refuge in drunkenness 
as soon as possible to acquire the happiness of stupidity. 

In one end of the salon some gypsies strummed their 
guitars, intoning melancholy songs. One of the foreign 
women, with the enthusiasm of the neophyte, sprang 
upon a table and began to slowly move her well rounded 
hips, seeking to imitate the native dances, showing off 
her progress after a few days of instruction by a Sevil- 
lian teacher. 

** Asatira! Malaje! Sosa!”’ the friends shouted iron- 
ically, encouraging her with rhythmic hand-clappings. 

They jested at her heaviness, but with devouring eyes 
they admired the beauty of her body. And she, proud 
of her art, taking these incomprehensible calls for enthu- 
siastic praise, went on moving her hips and raised her 
arms above her head like the handles of a jar, with her 
gaze aloft. 

After midnight they were all drunk. The women, 
lost to shame, besieged the swordsman with their ad- 
miring glances. He impassively let himself be managed 
by the hands that disputed for him, while lips surprised 
him with burning kisses on his cheeks and neck. 
He was drunk, but his drunkenness was sad. Ah! 
the other woman! The true blonde! The gold of these 
unbound locks that floated around him was artificial, 
gilded by chemicals applied to coarse strong hair. The 
- lips had a flavor of perfumed ointment. Through the 





[ 301 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


aroma his imagination detected an odor of vulgarity. 
Ah! the other one ! the other one ! 

Gallardo, without knowing how, found himself in the 
gardens, beneath the solemn silence that seemed to fall 
from the stars, among arbors of luxurious vegetation, 
following a tortuous path, seeing the dining-room win- 
dows through the foliage illuminated like mouths of Hell 
before which passed and repassed shadows like black 
demons. A woman was dragging him by the arm, and 
he let himself be taken, without even seeing her, with his 
thoughts far, far away. 

An hour afterwards he returned to the dining-room. 
His companion, her hair disordered, her eyes brilliant 
and hostile, was talking with her friends. They laughed 
and pointed him out with a deprecatory gesture to the 
other men, who laughed also—Ah! Spain! Land of 
disillusion, where all was but legend, even to the prowess 
of her heroes ! 

Gallardo drank more and more. The women who had 
quarrelled over him, besieging him with their caresses, 
turned their backs on him, falling into the arms of the 
other men. The guitarists scarcely played; surfeited 
with wine, they leaned over their instruments in pleasant _ 
drowsiness. 

The bull-fighter also was going to sleep on a bench 
when one of his friends, who was obliged to retire before 
his mother, the countess, arose, as she did every day to 
attend mass at daybreak, offered to take him home in 
his carriage. The night wind did not dissipate the bull- 
fighter’s intoxication. When the friend left him at the 
corner of his street Gallardo walked with vacillating step 
in the direction of his home. Near the door he stopped, 


| 302 | 


MASTERY OF SELF-PRESERVATION 


grasping the wall with both hands and resting his head 
on his arms as if he could not bear the weight of his 
thoughts. 

He had completely forgotten his friends, the supper 
at Eritafia, and the three painted foreign women who had 
quarrelled for him and then insulted him. Something 
remained in his memory of the other one, ever there, but 
indefinite and vague! Now his mind, by one of those 
capricious bounds of intoxication, reverted wholly to 
bull-fighting. He was the greatest matador in the world. 
Olé! So his manager and his friends declared, and it was 
true. His adversaries should see something when he 
went back to the plaza. What happened the other day 
was simple carelessness; Bad Luck that had played one 
of her tricks on him. 

Proud of the omnipotent strength that intoxication 
communicated to him at the moment, he saw all the An- 
dalusian and Castilian bulls transformed into weak 
goats that he could overthrow with but a blow from his 
hand. What occurred the other day was nothing — liq- 
uid! as Nacional said. The best singer lets slip a false 
note now and then. 

And this aphorism, learned from the mouths of vener- 


able patriarchs of the bull-fighting profession on after- 


noons of misfortune, stimulated him with an irresisti- 
ble desire to sing, and he filled the silence of the solitary 
street with his voice. With his head resting on his arms 
he began to hum a strophe of his own composition which 
was an extravagant hymn of praise to his own merits. 
“T am Juaniyo Gallardo—with more c—c—courage 
than God.” Not being able to improvise more in his own 
honor, he repeated the same words over and over in a 


[ 303 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


hoarse and monotonous voice that broke the silence and 
set an invisible dog down the street to barking. 

It was the paternal heritage revived in him; the sing- 
ing mania that accompanied Sefior Juan the cobbler on 
his weekly drunken rounds. 

The house door opened and Garabato, still half asleep, 
thrust out his head to see the drunken man, whose voice 
he thought he recognized. 

“Ah! Is it thou?” said the matador. “ Wait till I sing 
the last one.” 

He repeated the incomplete song in honor of his valor 
several times, until he finally decided to enter the house. 
He felt no desire to go to bed. Divining his condition, 
he put off the moment of going up to his room where 
Carmen awaited him, perhaps awake. 

“ Go to sleep, Garabato. I have a great deal to do.” 

He did not know what, but his office, with its decora- 
tion of vainglorious pictures, favors won in the bull-ring, 
and posters that proclaimed his fame, attracted him. 

When the globes of electric light illuminated the room 
and the servant went out, Gallardo stood in the centre 
of the office, vacillating on his legs, casting a glance of 
admiration around the walls, as if he contemplated this 
museum of glory for the first time. 

“Very good, but very good!” he murmured. “That 
fine fellow is me; and that one too, and all! And yet there 
are some people that talk against me! Curse it! I’m 
the greatest man in the world! Don José says so, and 
he tells the truth.” 

He threw his hat upon the divan as if he were taking 
off a crown of glory that oppressed his forehead, and 
staggered over to the desk, leaning against it, his gaze 


[ 304 ] 








MASTERY OF SELF-PRESERVATION 


fixed on an enormous bull’s head that adorned the wall 
at the lower end of the office. 

“Hello! Good-evening, my good boy! What art thou 
pretending to do there? Moo! Moo!” 

He greeted him with bellowings, childishly tideanitig 
the lowing of the bulls in the pasture and in the plaza. 
~He did not recognize him; he could not remember why 
the hairy head with its threatening horns was there. 
Gradually he began to recollect. 

“TI know thee, boy! I remember how thou madest 
me rage that afternoon. The people hissed, they threw 
bottles at me, they even insulted my poor mother, and 
thou, so gay, what fun thou hadst!— eh? — shameless 
beast!” 

In his intoxicated state he thought he saw the var- 
nished muzzle and the light in the glass eyes tremble 
with laughter. He even imagined that the horns moved 
the head, assenting to this question, with an undulation 
of the hanging neck. 

The drunken man, until then smiling and good na- 
tured, felt his anger rise with the recollection of that 
afternoon of misfortune. And even that evil beast 
smiled? Those wicked, crafty, scheming bulls, which 
seemed to jest at the combatant, were to blame when a 
man was ridiculed. Ah! how Gallardo detested them! 
What a look of hatred he fastened on the glass eyes of 
the horned head! 

“Still laughing? Damn thee, guasén! Cursed be the 
cow that bore thee and thy thief of a master that gave 
thee grass in his pasture! I hope he’s in prison. Still 
laughing? Still making faces at me?” 

In his fury he leaned his body on the table stretching 


[ 305 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


out his arms and opening the drawers. Then he stood 
erect, raising one hand toward the horned head. 
Bang! bang! Two shots from a revolver. 
A glass globe in the hollow of one eye burst into tiny 
fragments and a round black hole, circled by singed hair, 
opened in the forehead. 


[ 306 ] 





CHAPTER XIV 
THE SPANISH LILITH 


ITH the extreme violence characteristic of the 
changeable and erratic climate of Madrid in the 
_ midspring the temperature gave a jump backwards. 

It was cold. The gray sky was lavish of terrific rains, 
accompanied sometimes by flakes of snow. The people, 
already dressed in light clothing, opened wardrobes and 
chests to get out wraps and overcoats. The rain black- 
ened and ruined the white spring hats. 

No functions had been given in the bull plaza for two 
weeks. The Sunday corrida was postponed until a week- 
day when the weather should be fine. T he management, 
the employees of the plaza, and the innumerable devotees 
whom this forced suspension cast into an ill humor, 
watched the firmament with the anxiety of the peasant 
who fears for his crops. A clearing in the sky, or the 
appearance of a few stars at midnight when they left the 
cafés, made them cheerful again. 

“It’s going to clear up—bull-fight day after to- 
morrow.” 

But the clouds gathered again, the dark gloomy 
weather with its continual rain persisted, and the dev- 
otees of the game grew indignant at a climate that 
seemed to have declared war on the national sport. Un- 
happy country! Even bull-fights were becoming im- 
possible in it! 


[ 307 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Gallardo had spent two weeks in enforced rest. His 
cuadrilla complained of the inactivity. In any other town 
in Spain the bull-fighters would have endured this lack 
of work resignedly. The matador paid their board in the 
hotels everywhere except in Madrid. It was a bad rule 
established long ago by the maestros who lived in the cap- 
ital. It-was assumed that all bull-fighters must have 
their own home in the court city. And the poor lackeys 
and picadores, who lived at a miserable boarding-house 
kept by the widow of a banderillero, cut down their living 
by all manner of economies, smoking little and standing 
in the doors of cafés. They thought of their families 
with the longing of men who in exchange for their blood 
receive but a handful of pesetas. When the two bull- 
fights were over the proceeds from them would already 
be eaten up. 

The matador was equally ill-humored in the solitude of 
his hotel, not because of the weather, but rather on ac- 
count of his poor luck. He had fought his first corrida in 
Madrid with a deplorable result. The public had 
changed toward him. He still had partisans of dauntless 
faith who were strong in his defence; but these enthusi- 
asts, noisy and aggressive a year ago, now showed a cer- 
tain indifference, and when they found occasion to 
applaud him they did so with timidity. On the other 
hand, his enemies and that great mass of the public that 
look for dangers and deaths,— how unjust in their con- 
demnations! How bold in insulting him! What they 
tolerated in other matadores they prohibited in him. 

With the eagerness of a celebrity who feels that he 
is losing prestige, Gallardo exhibited himself prodigally 
in the places frequented by the devotees of the game. 


[ 308 | 





THE SPANISH LILITH 


He went into the Café Inglés, where the partisans of the 
Andalusian bull-fighters gather, and by his presence pre- 
vented implacable commentaries being heaped upon his 


name. He himself, smiling and modest, started the con- 
- versation with a humility that disarmed the most hos- 


tile. 

“Tt’s true I didn’t do well; I know it. But you will 
see at the next bull-fight, when the weather clears up. 
What can be done will be done.” 

He dared not enter certain cafés near the Puerta del 
Sol, where other devotees of a more modest class gath- 
ered. They were the enemies of Andalusian bull-fight- 
ing, genuine Madrileftos, embittered by the unfair 
prevalence of matadores from Cérdova and Seville, while 
the capital had not a single glorious representative. The 
memory of Frascuelo, whom they considered a son of 
Madrid, was perpetuated in these gatherings like the 
veneration of a miraculous saint. There were among 
them some who for many years had not gone to the 
plaza, not since the Negro retired. Why go? They con- 
tented themselves by reading the reviews in the news- 
papers, convinced that there were no bulls, nor even 
bull-fighters, since Frascuelo’s death — Andalusian boys, 
nothing else; dancers who made monkey-shines with 
their capes and bodies without knowing what it was to 
receive a bull. 

Occasionally a breath of hope circulated among them. 
Madrid was going to have a great matador. They had 
just discovered a bullock fighter, a son of the suburbs, 
who, after covering himself with glory in the plazas of 
Vallecas and Tetu4n, worked in the great plaza Sundays 
in cheap bull-fights. 


[ 309 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


His name became popular. In the barber-shops in the 
lesser wards they talked of him with enthusiasm, proph- 
esying great triumphs. The hero went from tavern to 
tavern drinking and increasing the nucleus of his parti- 
sans. 

But time passed and their prophecies remained unful- 
filled. Either this hero fell with a mortal horn wound, 
with no other recognition of his glory than four lines in 
the newspapers, or another subsided after a goring, be- 
coming one of the many tramps who exhibit the coleia at 
the Puerta del Sol, waiting for imaginary contracts. 
Then the devotees turned their eyes on other beginners, 
expecting with an Hebraic faith the coming of the matador 
glory to Madrid. 

Gallardo dared not go near these tauromachic dema- 
gogues who had always hated him and hailed his deca- 
dence. The majority of them did not go to see him in 
the ring, nor did they admire the present-day bull-fight- 
ers. They were waiting for their Messiah before decid- 
ing to return to the plaza. 

When he wandered at nightfall through the centre of 
Madrid near the Puerta del Sol and Seville Street, he al- 
lowed himself to be accosted by the vagabonds of the 
profession who form groups at these piaces, boasting of 
their achievements. They were youths who greeted him 
as “ maestro,” or “Sefior Juan” ; many with a hungry air, 
leading up to a petition for a few pesetas, but well dressed, 
clean, spick and span, adopting gallant airs, as if they 
were surfeited with the pleasures of existence, and wear- 
ing a scandalous display of brass in rings and imitation 
chains. Some were honorable fellows who were trying 
to make their way in tauromachy to maintain their fami- 


[ 310 ] 


THE SPANISH LILITH 


lies on something more than the workman’s daily wage. 
Others, less scrupulous, had female friends who worked 
at unmentionable occupations, willing to sacrifice their 
bodies to support and keep decent some fine fellow, who, 
to believe his words, would sometime be a celebrity. 

Without other belongings than the clothes they wore 
they strutted from morning till night in the centre of 
Madrid, talking about the contracts they had not cared 
to make, and spying on one another to find out who had 
money and could treat his comrades. When one, by a 
capricious turn of luck, managed to get a fight of young 
bullocks in some place in the province, he first had to 
redeem his glittering costume from a pawn shop — ven- 
erable and tarnished garments that had belonged to 
various heroes of the past. 

Among this tauromachic crowd, embittered by mis- 
fortune, and kept in obscurity through stupidity or 
fear, there were men who commanded general respect. 
‘ One who fled before the bulls was feared for the skill 
with which he used his knife. Another had been in prison 
for killing a man with his fist. The famous Swallow-hats 
enjoyed the honors of celebrity since one afternoon 
when, in a tavern at Vallecas, he ate a Cordovan felt hat 
torn into pieces and fried, with wine at discretion to make 
the mouthfuls go down. 

Some, suave mannered, always well dressed and freshly 
shaved, fastened themselves upon Gallardo, accom- 
panying him on his walks in the hope that he would 
invite them to dine. Others with an arrogant look in 
their bold eyes entertained the swordsman gayly with the 
relation of their adventures. 

On sunny mornings they went to the Castellana in 


[ 311] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


search of game, when the governesses of the great 
houses take the children out for an airing. These were 
English misses or German frauleins, who had just come 
to Madrid with their heads filled with picturesque ideas 
about this land of legend, and when they saw a young 
fellow with shaven face and broad hat, they immediately 
imagined him to be a bull-fighter —a bull-fighter lover 
— how fine! 

“They are girls as insipid as bread without salt, you 
know, maestro. Big feet and hempen hair, but they have 
their good points, you bet they have! As they scarcely 
catch on to what one says to them, they ’re all smiles, 
showing their teeth, which are very white. And they 
open their big eyes wide. They don’t talk Christian but 
they understand when one makes signs of asking a tip, 
and as one is a gentleman and is always lucky, they give 
money for tobacco and other things — and one manages 
to live. I have three on hand now.” 

The speaker boasted of his indefatigable cleverness 
which absorbed the savings of the governesses. 

Others devoted themselves to the foreign women of 
the music-halls, dancers and singers who came to Spain 
with the desire of immediately experiencing the joys of 
having a bull-fighter lover. They were lively French 
women, with snub noses and straight corsets, so spiritu- 
ally slender there seemed to be nothing tangible under 
their perfumed and rustling, cabbage-like, crimpled skirts ; 
German girls with solid flesh, heavy, imposing, and 
blonde as Valkyries; Italians with black, oily hair, with 
a greenish brown complexion and a tragic air. 

The young bull-fighters laughed, recollecting their first 
private interviews with these devout enthusiasts. The 


[ 312 ] 





THE SPANISH LILITH 


foreign woman was always afraid of being deceived, 
dreading to find that her legendary hero was but an ordi- 
nary man. Really,.was he a bull-fighter? And they 
looked for his queue, smiling complacently at their wit 
when they felt the hairy appendage in their fingers, 
which was equivalent to a certificate of identification. 

“You know what these women are, maesiro. They 
spend the whole evening kissing and caressing the coleta. 
To entertain them one has to jump up and perform in 
the middle of the room and explain how bulls are fought, 
turning over a chair, doing cape-work with a sheet, and 
lodging banderillas with the fingers. Holy Sea! And 
then, as they are girls who go about the world dragging 
money out of every Christian that comes near them, they 
begin their begging in their broken Spanish that even 
God himself could n’t understand: ‘ Bull-fighter sweet- 
heart, wilt thou give me one of thy capes, all embroid- 
ered in gold, to wear when I come on to dance?” You 
see, maestro, how greedy these girls are. As if one 
bought capes as freely as newspapers. As if one had 
oceans of them — !” 

The young bull-fighter promised the cape with gener- 
ous arrogance. All bull-fighters are rich. And while the 
gorgeous gift was on the way, they became more inti- 
mate, and the lover asked loans of his friend, who, if 
she did not have money, pawned a jewel; and he, grow- 
ing bolder, began helping himself to anything that lay 
within reach of his hand. When she happened to 
awaken from her amorous dream, protesting at such lib- 
erties, the fine fellow demonstrated the vehemence of 
his passion and returned the loans to her legendary hero 
in the form of a beating. 


[ 313 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Gallardo enjoyed this tale, particularly when he heard 
the last part. 
“ Aha! thou doest well!” he said with savage joy. 


“Be firm with those girls. Thou knowest them. Thus. 


they love thee more! The worst thing a Christian can 
do is to humble himself before certain women. Man 
must make himself respected.” 

He ingenuously admired the lack of scruple in these 
youths who lived by levying a contribution on the illu- 
sions of passing foreign women, and he pitied himself 
thinking of his weakness before a certain one. 

At sunset, one afternoon, the swordsman on entering 
Alcala Street from the Puerta del Sol, stopped, struck 
by surprise. A blonde lady was getting out of a car- 
riage at the door of the Hotel de Paris. A man who 
looked like a foreigner gave her his hand, assisting her 
to alight, and after speaking a few words he drove away 
while she went into the hotel. 

It was Dofia Sol. The bull-fighter did not doubt her 
identity. Neither did he doubt the relations that united 
her to the foreigner after seeing her glances and the 
smile with which they said farewell. Thus she used to 
look at him, thus she used to smile at him in those 
happy days when they rode together in the deserted 
fields illuminated by the soft rose-color of the setting 
sun — “ Curse it!” 

He spent the evening in ill-humor in the company of 
some friends; then he slept badly, many scenes of the 
past being reproduced in his dreams. When he rose the 
dark and livid light of a gloomy day entered through 
the balconies. It was raining, the water drops mingled 
with flakes of snow. Everything was black; the sky, the 


[ 314] 


THE SPANISH LILITH 


walls opposite, a dripping gable within view, the muddy 
pavement, the roofs of the coaches shining like mirrors, 
the movable cupolas of the umbrellas. 

Eleven o’clock! Should he go to see Dofia Sol? Why 
not! The night before he had put aside this thought 
with a rush of anger. That would be to humble him- 
self. She had run away from him without any explana- 
tion whatever, and later, when she heard of his being 
wounded unto death, she had scarcely interested herself 
in his health. A simple telegram at first and nothing 
more, not even a poor letter of a few lines; she, who 
with such ease wrote to her friends. No; he would not 
go to see her. He was very proud. 

But the next morning his determination seemed to have 
softened during the night. “Why not?” he asked him- 
self. He must see her again. For him she was first 
among all the women he had ever known; she attracted 
him with a force different from the affection he felt for 
others. “I have a right to her,” the bull-fighter said to 
himself, realizing his weakness. Ah! how he had felt 
the violent separation! 

The atrocious goring in the plaza of Seville, with the 
rigor of physical pain, had softened the force of his amor- 
ous torment. Illness, and then his tender reinstatement 
in the good graces of Carmen during convalescence, had 
made him resigned to his fate. But forget? Never! 
He had made every effort not to think of the past, but 
the most insignificant circumstance — passing along 
a road on which he had galloped with the beautiful 
Amazon; meeting on the street an English blonde; con- 
tact with those young Sevillian gentlemen who were her 
relatives, all resurrected the image of Dofia Sol. Ah, 


[315 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


this woman! He would never find another like her. 
When he lost her, Gallardo believed the decadence of 
his life had begun. He was no longer the same. He 
deemed himself many steps lower in social consideration. 
He even attributed his downfall in his art to this aban- 
donment. When he had her he was more valiant. When 
the blonde girl fied bad luck had begun for the bull- 
fighter. If she would return to him, surely the sun of 
his glory would rise again. His spirit, at times sus- 
tained, at others weakened by the mirage of superstition, 
believed this firmly. 

Perhaps his desire to see her might stir again a joyful 
heart-throb, like that which had often saved him in the 
ring. Why not? He had great confidence in himself. 
His easy triumphs with women dazzled by his success 
made him believe in the irresistible charm of his person. 
It might be that Dofia Sol, seeing him after a long ab- 
sence — who could tell! The first time they were alone 
it happened so. 

And Gallardo, trusting in his lucky star, with the ar- 
rogant tranquillity of a man of fortune, who necessarily 
must awaken desire wherever his gaze falls, marched 
over to the Hotel de Paris, which was situated a short 
distance from his own. 

He had to wait more than half an hour subjected to the 
curious gaze of employees and guests who turned their 
faces on hearing his name. 

A servant invited him to enter the elevator and con- 
ducted him to a little salon on the next floor from which 
the Puerta del Sol could be seen with the black roofs 
of the houses opposite, the pavements concealed beneath 
the meeting streams of umbrellas, and the shining as- 


[ 316 ] 


THE SPANISH LILITH 


phalt of the plaza furrowed by swift coaches, which 
seemed to whip the rain, or by tram cars that crossed in 
every direction and rang an incessant warning to the 
foot passengers. 

A little door concealed by hangings opened and Dofia 
Sol appeared, amid a rustling of silk, and a sweet per- 
fume of fresh pink flesh, in all the splendor of the sum- 
mer of her existence. 

Gallardo devoured her with his eyes, inspecting her 
with the exactitude of one who knew her well and did 
not forget details. 

Just as she was in Seville! No— more beautiful, if 
possible, with the added temptation of a long absence. 

She presented herself in elegant abandon, wearing an 
odd costume with strange jewels, as he first saw her in 
her house in Seville. Her feet were thrust into slippers 
covered with heavy gold embroideries which, when she 
sat down and crossed her limbs, hung loose, ready to fall 
off her pointed toes. She extended him her hand, smil- 
ing with amiable frigidity. 

“ How are you, Gallardo? I knew you were in Mad- 
rid. I have seen you.” 

You! She no longer used the thou of the great lady, 
to which he had responded with respectful courtesy as 
her lover in a class beneath. This you that seemed to 
put them on a level drove the swordsman to despair. 
‘He wished to be a kind of serf, elevated by love to the 
great lady’s arms, and he found himself treated with the 
cold and courteous consideration which an ordinary friend 
inspires. 

She explained that she had attended the only bull- 
fight Gallardo had given in Madrid and had seen him 


[ 317] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


there. She had gone to see the bulls with a foreigner 
who desired a glimpse of things Spanish; a friend who 
accompanied her on her travels but who lived in another 
hotel. 

Gallardo responded to this with an affirmative move- 
ment of the head. He remembered the foreigner; he had 
seen him with her. 

The two fell into a long silence, not knowing what to 
say. Dofia Sol was the first to break the pause. 

She found the bull-fighter looking well; she vaguely 
recollected about a great wound he had received; she 
was almost certain of having telegraphed to Seville, ask- 
ing for news of him. With the life she lived, with contin- 
ual change of country and new friendships, her thoughts 
were in such confusion! But he appeared now as usual, 
and in the corrida he had seemed to her arrogant and 
strong, although rather unlucky. She did not under- 
stand much about bulls. “Was it nothing, that 
goring?” 

Gallardo was irritated by the accent of indifference 
with which the woman asked the question. And he, 
when he considered himself between life and death, had 
thought only of her! 


With the gloom of dismay he told her about his being 
caught, and of his convalescence which had lasted. all 


winter. 

She listened to him with feigned interest, while her 
eyes revealed indifference: The misfortunes of the glad- 
iator were of no importance to her. They were accidents 
of his trade which could only be of interest to him. 

Gallardo, as he spoke of his convalesence at the plan- 
tation, thought of the man he and Dojfia Sol had met to- 
gether there. “And Plumitas? Do you remember that 


[ 318 } 








THE SPANISH LILITH 


poor fellow? He was killed. I don’t know whether 
you heard about it.” 

Dofia Sol also vaguely remembered this. Possibly she 
had read it in the Paris newspapers, which printed a 
great deal about the bandit as an interesting type of 
picturesque Spain. ' P 

“Poor man,” said Dofia Sol with indifference. “I 
barely recall him as a clownish and uninteresting rustic. 
At a distance things are seen at their true values. What 
I do remember is the day he breakfasted with us at the 
farmhouse.” 

Gallardo had not forgotten this event. Poor Plumitas! 
With what emotion he took the flower offered by Dofia 
Sol! Did she not remember? 

Dofia Sol’s eyes showed sincere astonishment. 

“ Are you sure?” she asked. “Is that so? I swear I 
remember nothing about it. Ah! that land of the sun! 
The intoxication of the picturesque! The follies one 
commits!” 

Her exclamations revealed a vague repentance. Then 
she began to laugh. 

“And maybe that poor rustic kept the flower until his 
last moment; no, Gallardo? Don’t tell me he did not. 
Perhaps no one ever gave him a flower before in all his 
life. And it is possible also they found that dried flower 
on his dead body, a mysterious token no one could ex- 
plain. Don’t you know anything about it, Gallardo? 
Did n’t the newspapers mention it? Hush; don’t tell 
me no; don’t dispel my illusions. It must have been 
so; I want it to be so. Poor Plumitas! How interest- 
ing! And I had forgotten all about the flower! I will 
tell my friend, who thinks he will write on things 
Spanish.” 


[ 319 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


The recollection of this friend, who within a few min- 
utes was brought into the conversation for a second time, 
depressed the bull-fighter. 

He sat gazing steadily at the beautiful lady with a 
tearful melancholy in his Moorish eyes which seemed 
to implore compassion. 

“Dofia Sol! Dofia Sol!” he murmured with an ac- 
cent of despair, as if he would reproach her for her 
cruelty. 

“What is it, my friend?” she asked smiling. “ What 
is the matter with you?” 

Gallardo kept silence and bowed his head, intimidated 
by the ironic reflection in those blue eyes, sparkling with 
their tiny flakes of gold. 

After a moment he sat erect as does one who adopts 
a resolution. 

“Where have you been all this time, Dofia Sol?” 

“Travelling about the world,’ she answered simply. 
“T am a bird of passage. In innumerable cities whose 
very names you do not know.” 

“And that foreigner who accompanies you now — 
is—?” 

“He is a friend,” she said coldly. “ A friend who has 
had the kindness to accompany me, taking advantage of 
the opportunity to see Spain; a fine man who bears an 
illustrious name. From here we go to Andalusia when 
he gets through seeing the museums. What more do 
you desire to know?” 

In that question, asked with hauteur, an imperious in- 
tention of keeping the bull-fighter at a distance was ap- 
parent, of establishing social differences between the 
two. Gallardo was disconcerted. 


[ 320 ] 


ee ee ae 





THE SPANISH LILITH 


“ Dofia Sol!” he moaned with ingenuousness. “God 
cannot forgive what you have done to me! You have 
been unkind to me, very unkind. Why did you run away 
without a word?” 

His eyes moistened, he clenched his fists in despera- 
tion. 

“Don’t act so, Gallardo. What I did was a great 
favor to you. Don’t you know me well enough yet? 
Did you not weary of that affair? If I were a man I 
would run away from women of my character. The 
unhappy man who falls in love with me is a suicide.” 

“But why did you go?” insisted Gallardo. 

“TI went because I was bored. Do I speak clearly? 
And when a woman is bored, I believe she has a right to 
escape in search of new diversions. I am bored to death 
everywhere; pity me.” 

“But I love you with all my soul!” exclaimed the 
bull-fighter with a dramatic and ingenuous expression 
that would have been ridiculous in another man. 

“TI love you with all my soul!” repeated Dofia Sol 
imitating his accent and gesture. “And what of that? 
Ah, these egotistical men, who are applauded by the peo- 
ple and imagine that everything has been created for 
them. ‘I love thee with all my soul and therefore thou 
must love me also’ — But no, senor. I do not love you, 
Gallardo. You are my friend and nothing more. That 
affair in Seville was a dream, a mad caprice, which I 
barely recollect and which you should forget.” 

The bull-fighter rose, drawing near Dofia Sol with ex- 
tended hands. In his ignorance he did not know what 
to say, divining that his rude words were inefficient to 
convince that woman. He trusted his desires and hopes 


[ 321 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


to action, with the vehemence of an impulsive man, in- 
tending to overpower the woman, to attract her and dis- 
pel by contact the chill which separated them. 

“ Dofia Sol!” he supplicated, grasping her hands. 

But she, with a simple turn of her agile right hand, 
disengaged herself from the bull-fighter. A flash of pride 
and anger darted from her eyes and she bent forward 
aggressively, as if she had suffered an insult. 

“Silence, Gallardo! If you go on thus you will not 
be my friend and I will show you the door.” 

The bull-fighter’s attitude changed to one of despair; 
he was humbled and ashamed. 

“Don’t be a baby,” she said. “Why remember what 
is no longer possible? Why think of me? You have 
your wife, who, I hear, is pretty and simple; a good 
companion. And if not she, there are others. Think 
how many clever girls you can find there in Seville, those 
who wear the manitilla, with flowers in their hair, those 
that used to please me so much, who would think it a 
joy to be loved by Gallardo. My infatuation is over. It 
hurts your pride, being a famous man accustomed to suc- 
cess; but so it is; it’s over; friend and nothing more. 
I am changed. I have become bored and I never retrace 
my steps. My illusions last but a short time and pass, 
leaving no trace. I deserve pity, believe me.” 

She gazed at the bull-fghter with eyes of commisera- 
tion, with pitying curiosity, as if she suddenly saw him 
in all his defects and crudeness. 

“T think things that you could not understand,” she 
continued. “ You seem to me changed. The Gallardo 
of Seville was different from the one here. Are you 
really the same person? I do not doubt it, yet to me you 


[ 322 ] 








| 





THE SPANISH LILITH 


are a different man. How can I explain it to you? Once I 
met a rajah in London. Do you know what a rajah is?” 

Gallardo negatively shook his head blushing at his 
ignorance. 

“Tt is an Indian prince.” 

The old-time ambassadress recalled the Hindoo mag- 
nate, his coppery face shaded by a black beard, his enor- 
mous white turban with a great dazzling diamond above 
his forehead and the rest of his body enwrapped in white 
vestments of thin and innumerable veils, like the petals 
of a flower. 

“ He was handsome, he was young, he adored me with 
the mysterious eyes of an animal of the forest, but he 
seemed to me ridiculous, and I jested at him every time 
he stammered one of his Oriental compliments in Eng- 
lish. He shook with cold, the fogs made him cough, he 
moved around like a bird in the rain, waving his veils 
as if they were wet wings. When he talked to me of 
love, gazing at me with his moist gazelle-like eyes, I 
longed to buy him an overcoat and a cap, so that he would 
not shake any longer. However, I realized that he was 
handsome and could have been the joy, for quite a few 
months, of a woman desirous of something extraordinary. 
It was a question of atmosphere, of scene. You, Gal- 
lardo, do you know what that is?” 

And Dofia Sol remained pensive, recalling the poor 
rajah always shaking with cold in his absurd vestments 
amid the foggy light of London. In her imagination 
she beheld him there in his own country transfigured by 
the majesty of power and by the light of the sun, his 
coppery complexion, with the greenish reflexions of the 
tropical vegetation, taking on a tone of artistic bronze. 


[ 323 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


She saw him mounted on his elephant on parade, with 
long golden hangings that swept the ground, escorted 
by warlike horsemen and slaves bearing censers with 
perfumes, his great turban crowned with white feathers 
set with precious stones, his bosom covered with breast- 
plates of diamonds, his waist bound by a belt of emer- 
alds, from which hung a golden scimitar; she saw him 
surrounded by bayaderes with painted eyes and firm 
breasts, forests of lances, and, in the background, pa- 
godas with multiple roofs one above another, with little 
bells that chimed mysterious symphonies at the slightest 
whisper of the breeze; palaces of more mystery; dense 
thickets in whose shadows leaped and growled ferocious 
multicolored animals. Ah; atmosphere! Seeing the 
poor rajah thus, proud as a god, beneath an arid sky of 
intense blue, and in the splendor of an ardent sun, it 
would never have occurred to her to present him with 
an overcoat. It was almost certain that she herself 
might have fallen into his arms giving herself up as a 
serf of love. 

“ You remind me of the rajah, friend Gallardo. There 
in Seville, in your native costume, with the lance over 
your shoulder, you were all right. You were a com- 
plement to the landscape. But here! Madrid has be- 
come very much Europeanized; it is a city like others. 
Native costumes are no longer worn. Manila shawls are 
seldom seen off the stage. Don’t be offended, Gallardo; 
but I don’t know why you remind me of the rajah.” 

She looked through the windows at the wet ground 
and the rainy sky, at the scattering flakes of snow, and 
the crowd that moved with accelerated step under the 
dripping umbrellas. Then she turned her gaze on the 


[ 324 ] 











THE SPANISH LILITH 


swordsman, stared strangely at the braid hanging from 
his head, at the way his hair was combed, at his hat, 
at all the details that revealed his profession, which con- 
trasted with his elegant and modern costume. 

The bull-fighter was — in Dofia Sol’s opinion — out of 
his element. Ah, this Madrid; rainy and dismal! Her 
friend who had come with the illusion of a Spain of 
eternal blue sky, was disappointed. She herself, seeing 
on the walk near the hotel the groups of young bull- 
fighters in gallant attitudes, inevitably thought of exotic 
animals brought from sunny countries to zodlogical gar- 
dens beneath a rainy sky in a gray light. There in 
Andalusia Gallardo was the hero, the spontancous pro- 
duct of a cattle country. Here he seemed to her a com- 
edian, with his shaven face and the stage manners of 
one accustomed to public homage; a comedian who in- 
stead of speaking dialogues with his equals awoke the 
tragic thrill in combat with wild beasts. 

Ah! The seductive mirage of the lands of the sun! 
The deceitful intoxication of light and color! And she 
had been able to love that rough, uncouth fellow a few 
months, she had extolled the crudities of his ignorance, 
and she had even demanded that he should not abandon 
his habits, that he should smell of bulls and horses, so 
as not to dispel with perfumes the odors of wild animals 
that enveloped his person! Ah, atmosphere! To what 
mad deeds it drives one! 

She remembered the danger in which she had stood 
of being killed by a bull’s horns; then the breakfast 
with a bandit, to whom she had listened speechless with 
admiration and in the end had given a flower. What 
nonsense! And how far away it seemed now! 


[ 325 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Nothing remained of this past which caused her to 
feel repentance for its absurdity except that lusty youth 
motionless before her with his supplicating eyes and his 
infantile effort to resurrect those days. Poor man! As 
if the madness could be repeated when one thinks calmly, 
and illusion, blind enchantress of life, has vanished! 

“It is all over,” said the lady. “ The past must be 
forgotten, now that looking back it does not appear in 
the same colors. What would I not give to have the 
eyes I used to have! On returning to Spain I find it 
changed. You also are different. It even seemed to me 
the other day, seeing you in the plaza, that you were less 
daring — that the people were less enthusiastic.” 

She said this simply, without malice, but Gallardo im- 
agined he divined in her voice a trace of mockery; he 
bowed his head and his cheeks reddened. 

“Curse it!” Professional worries surged through his 
mind. Everything that happened was because he no 
longer got close to the bulls. She had said it plainly. He 
seemed to her a different man. If he became the Gal- 
lardo of former times perhaps she would receive him bet- 
ter. Women love none but the brave. 

The bull-fighter deceived himself with these illusions, 
taking what was a caprice, dead forever, for a momen- 
tary aversion that he could conquer by force of prowess. 

Dofia Sol arose. The call had been long and the bull- 
fighter did not seem disposed to go; he was content to 
be near her, vaguely trusting to circumstance to draw 
them together. But he was obliged to imitate her. She 
excused herself, pleading an engagement. She was ex- 
pecting her friend; they were going together to the 
Prado Gallery. 


[ 326 ] 











THE SPANISH LILITH 


Then she invited him to breakfast the next morning ; 
a quiet breakfast in her apartments. Her friend would 
also come. Undoubtedly it would bea pleasure to him to 
see a bull-fighter at close range. He scarcely spoke 
Spanish but he would be pleased to meet Gallardo. 

The swordsman pressed her hand, answering with in- 
coherent words, and left the room. Fury clouded his 
vision; his ears buzzed. 

Thus she bade him good-bye — coldly, as she would 
an occasional friend. And that was the same woman he 
had known in Seville! And she invited him to breakfast 
with her friend who would amuse himself by examining 
him close at hand, as if he were a rare beast. 

Curse it! He was a brave man. He was done. He 
would never go to see her again. 


[ 327 ] 


CHAPTER XV 
BEHIND THE SCENES 


UST at that time Gallardo received several letters from 
Don José and from Carmen. The manager tried to en- 
courage his matador, counselling him to walk straight up 
to the bulls —“ Zas/ a thrust and thou wilt put him in 
in thy pocket.” But underlying his enthusiasm a certain 
depression might be detected, as if his faith were dwind- 
ling and he had begun to doubt that Gallardo was “ the 
greatest man in the world.” He knew of the discontent 
and hostility with which the public received him. The 
last bull-fight in Madrid disheartened Don José com- 
pletely. No; Gallardo was not like other swordsmen 
who went on in spite of public derision, satisfied with 
earning money. His matador had bull-fighter pride and 
could only show himself in the ring to advantage when 
received with great enthusiasm. 

Don José pretended to understand what ailed his 
swordsman. Want of courage? Never. He would suf- 
fer death before he would recognize this defect in his 
hero. It was because he was tired, because he was not 
yet recovered from his goring. “And so,” he advised in: 
all his letters, “it would be better for thee to retire and 
rest a season. Afterward thou wilt fight again like thine 
old self.” He offered to arrange everything. A doctor’s 
certificate was enough to certify his temporary weakness, 


[ 328 ] 








_.i(#i4#wde nee 


BEHIND THE SCENES 


and the manager would settle with the plaza impresarios 
to arrange the pending contracts by sending a matador 
from the beginners’ ranks, who would substitute Gal- 
lardo for a modest sum. They would still make money 
by this arrangement. 

Carmen was more vehement in her petitions. He must 
retire immediately ; he must “ cut his queue.” She was 
more afraid now than in the first years of her married 
life, when the bull-fights and the fearful suspense seemed 
to her conditions of existence that destroyed her peace 
of mind. Her heart told her, with that feminine instinct 
seldom mistaken in its forebodings, that something grave 
was going to happen. She scarcely slept; she dreaded 
the night hours, broken as they were by sanguinary vis- 
ions. She waxed furious at the public in her letters —a 
crowd of ingrates who forgot what the bull-fighter had 
done when he was himself; evil-minded people who 
wished to see him die for their diversion, as though she 
did not exist, as though he had no mother. “ Juan, 
Mamita and I ask it of thee. Retire. Why go on bull- 
fighting? We have enough to live on and it pains me to 
have to see thee insulted by people who are beneath 
thee. And if another accident should happen — Heav- 
ens!—TI believe I should go mad.” 

Gallardo remained thoughtful after reading these let- 
ters. Retire! What nonsense! Women’s notions! 
They could say this easily on the impulse of affection, 
but it was impossible. “Cut his queue” at thirty! How 
his enemies would laugh! He had no right to retire 
while his members were sound and he could fight. Such 
an absurd thing had never happened. Money was not 
all. How about glory? And professional pride? What 


[ 329 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


would the thousands and thousands of enthusiastic 
partisans who admired him say of him? What answer 
would they make to the enemies who threw it in their 
faces that Gallardo had retired through cowardice? 

Moreover, the matador stopped to consider whether his 
fortune would permit this solution. He was rich, and 
yet he was not. His social position was not established. 
What he possessed was the work of the early years of 
his married life, when one of his greatest joys consisted 
in saving, and in surprising Carmen and the mamita with 
news of fresh acquisitions. Later he had gone on earning 
money, maybe in greater quantity, but it was wasted 
and had disappeared through various leaks in his new 
existence. He had gambled a great deal and had lived a 
life of splendor. His gambling had caused him to ask 
loans of various devotees in the provinces. He was rich, 
but if he retired, thus losing the income of the corridas 
(some years two hundred thousand peseias, others three 
hundred thousand) he would have to retrench, after pay- 
ing his debts, by living like a country gentleman off the 
product of La Rinconada, practising economies and over- 
seeing the estate himself, for up to that time the planta- 
tion, abandoned to mercenary hands, had produced 
almost nothing. 

In former times he would have considered himself ex- 
tremely wealthy with a small part of what he actually 
possessed. Now he seemed almost a poor man if he 
gave up bull-fighting. He would have to forego the 
Havana cigars which he distributed prodigally, and the 
high-priced Andalusian wines; he would have to curtail 
the impulses of a gran sefor and no longer shout in cafés 
and taverns, “It’s all paid for!” with the generous im- 
pulse of a man accustomed to defy death, which led him 


[ 330 ] 








BEHIND THE SCENES 


to conduct his life with mad extravagance. He would 
have to dismiss the troop of parasites and flatterers that 
swarmed around him, making him laugh with their 
whining petitions; and when a smart woman of equivo- 
cal class came to him (if any would come, after he had 
retired), he could no longer make her turn pale with 
emotion by putting into her ears hoops of gold and 
pearls, nor could he amuse himself by spotting her rich 
Chinese shawl with wine to surprise her afterwards with 
a finer one. 

So had he lived, and so must he continue to live. He 
was a bull-fighter of the good old times, such as the peo- 
ple represent a matador of bulls to be, liberal, proud, a 
reveller in scandalous extravagances and quick to succor 
the unfortunate with princely alms whenever they 
touched his rude sentiments. 

Gallardo jested at many of his companions, bull-fight- 
ers of a new kind, vulgar members of the guild of the in- 
dustry of killing bulls, who journeyed from plaza to 
plaza like commercial travellers, and were careful and 
mean in all their expenditures. Some of them, who were 
almost boys, carried in their pocket an account book of 
income and expenses, marking down even the five 
centimes for a glass of water at a station. They only 
mingled with the rich to accept their attentions and it 
never occurred to them to treat anybody. Others boiled 
great pots of coffee at home when the travelling season 
came on and carried the black liquid with them in bot- 
tles, having it reheated, to avoid this expense in hotels. 
The members of certain cuadrillas endured hunger and 
growled in public about the avarice of their maestros. 

Gallardo was not tired of his life of splendor. And 
they wanted him to renounce it! 


[ 331 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Moreover, he thought of the necessities of his own 
house, where all were accustomed to an easy existence; 
the full and unembarrassed life of a family which does 
not count money or worry about its coming in, seeing it 
drip ceaselessly as from a faucet. Besides his wife and 
mother, he had taken upon himself another family, his 
sister, his chattering brother-in-law as idle as though his 
relationship to a celebrated man gave him the right to 
vagrancy, and all the troop of little nephews who were 
growing up and becoming constantly more expensive. 
He would have to call to an order of economy and 
parsimony all these people accustomed to live at his cost 
in merry and open-handed carelessness! And every- 
body, even poor Garabato, would have to go to the plan- 
tation, to parch in the sun and become brutish as 
rustics! Poor Mamita could no longer gladden her last 
days with pious generosity dispensing money among the 
needy women in the ward, shrinking like a bashful girl 
when her son pretended to be angry at finding she had 
nothing left of the hundred duros he had given her two 
weeks before! Carmen naturally would try to cut down 
expenses, sacrificing herself first, depriving her existence 
of many frivolities that made it bright. 

“Curse it!” All this meant the degradation of his 
family—on his account. Gallardo felt ashamed that 
such a thing might happen. It would be a crime to de- 
prive them after having accustomed them to luxury. 
And what must he do to avoid it? Simply get closer to 
the bulls; to go on fighting as in former times. 

He would get closer! 

He answered his manager’s and Carmen’s letters with 
brief and labored lines that revealed his firm intention. 
Retire? Never! 


[ 332 ] 





BEHIND THE SCENES 


He was resolved to be the same as ever, he swore it to 
Don José. He would follow his advice. “Zas! A 
thrust, and the beast in his pocket.” His courage rose, 
and he felt equal to taking care of all the bulls in the 
universe no matter how big they might be. 

He was gay toward his wife, although his pride was — 
rather hurt because she doubted his strength. She 
should hear news after the next corrida! He meant to as- 
tonish the public to shame it for its injustice. If the 
bulls were good, he would be like the very Roger de Flor 
himself ! 

Good bulls! This was Gallardo’s worry. It used to be 
one of his vanities that he never gave them a thought, 
and he never went to see them in the plaza before the 
corrida. 

“T kill everything they let out to me,” he used to say 
arrogantly. And he beheld the bulls for the first time 
when he saw them enter the ring. ! 

Now he wished to examine them, to choose them, to 
prepare for success by a careful study of their condition. 

The weather had cleared, the sun shone; the following 
day the second bull-fight was to take place. 

In the afternoon Gallardo went alone to the plaza. 
The amphitheatre of red brick, with its Moorish win- 
dows, stood by itself at the base of green hills. In the 
background of this broad and monotonous landscape 
something resembling a distant flock of sheep shone 
white on the slope of a hill. It was a cemetery. 

Seeing the bull-fighter in the vicinity of the plaza some 
slovenly individuals, parasites of the ring, vagabonds 
who slept in the stables through charity, living at the 
cost of devotees and on the leavings of patrons of the 
nearby taverns, approached him. Some of them had 


[ 333 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


come from Andalusia with a shipment of bulls and hung 
about in the vicinity of the plaza. Gallardo distributed 
some coins among these beggars, who followed him cap 
in hand, and entered the ring through the door of the 
Caballerizas. 

In the corral he saw a group of devotees watching the 
picadores testing horses. Potaje, with great cowboy spurs 
on his heels, was grasping a spear, preparing to mount. 
Those in charge of the stables escorted the manager of 
the horses, an obese man in a great Andalusian hat, slow 
of speech, who responded calmly to the insulting and 
abusive wrangling of the picadores. 

The “wise monkeys,” with arms bared were pulling 
the hacks by the bridle reins for the riders to try them. 
For several days they had been riding and training these 
miserable horses which still bore on their flanks the red 
gashes of the spurs. They brought them out to trot 
over the clearings adjacent to the plaza, making them 
acquire an artificial energy with the iron on their heels 
and obliging them to make turns to accustom them to 
running in the ring. They came back to the plaza with 
their sides dyed with blood, and before entering the 
stables they received a baptism of several bucketfuls 
of water. Near the trough not far away the water 
standing between the stones was dark red, like spilled 
wine. 

The horses destined for the bull-fight the following 
day were almost dragged out of the stables to be ex- 
amined and passed upon by the picadores. These worn- 
out remnants of wretched horse-flesh advanced, with 
tremulous flanks drooping with old age and sickness, a 
reproach to human ingratitude so forgetful of past serv- 


[ 334 ] 











BEHIND THE SCENES 


ice. Some were mere skeletons with sharp protruding 
ribs that seemed about to break through their hairy hide. 
Others walked proudly, stamping their strong hoofs, 
their coats shining and their eyes bright; beautiful an- 
imals that it was hard to imagine among outcasts des- 
tined to death, magnificent beasts that seemed to have 
been recently unharnessed from a luxurious carriage. 
These were the most dreaded, for they were horses af- 
flicted with vertigo and other maladies, and behind these 
specimens of misery and infirmity, rang the sad hoof- 


beats of steeds past work, mill and factory horses, farm 


horses, public cab nags, all dulled by years of pulling 
the plough or the cart, unhappy pariahs who were going 
to be exploited until the last instant, forced to provide di- 
version to men with their pawing and springing when 
the bull’s horns gored their shrinking bodies. To mount 
this miserable horse-herd, tremulous with madness or 
ready to drop with misery, as much courage was needed 
as to stand before the bull. Heavy Moorish saddles with 
high pommel, yellow seat, and cowboy stirrups were 
thrown upon them, and as they received this weight their 
legs almost gave way. 

Potaje wore a haughty mien in his discussions with 
the overseer of the horses, speaking for himself and for 
his comrades, making even the “wise monkeys ” laugh 
with his gypsy-like maledictions. Let the other picadores 
leave it to him to come to an understanding with the 
horse-traders. Nobody knew better than he how to make 
these people stand around. 

A servant approached him, dragging after him a de- 
jected hack with long hair and ribs in painful relief. 

“ What art thou bringing there?” said Potaje facing 


[ 335 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


the man. “That can’t be received. That’s an animal 
no man alive could mount. Take it to thy mother!” 

The phlegmatic contractor answered with grave calm- 
ness. If Potaje dared not mount him it was because the 
piqueros now-a-days were afraid of everything. With a 
horse like this, kind and gentle, Sefior Calderén, Trigo, 
or any of the good-old-time horsemen could have fought 
bulls two consecutive afternoons without getting a fall 
and without the animal receiving a scratch. But now! 
Now there was much fear and very little shame. 

The picador and the contractor insulted one another 
with friendly calmness, for among them abusive lan- 
guage lost significance from force of habit. 

“What thou art,” answered Potaje, “is a freshy, a 
bigger thief than José Maria the Earlybird. Get out, and 
let thy bald-headed grandmother that rode on a broom 
every Saturday at the stroke of twelve get on that raw- 
boned, hard-gaited beast.” 

Those present laughed and the contractor merely 
shrugged his shoulders. 

“But what’s the matter with that horse?” he said 
coolly. “ Look at him, thou evil soul. Better is he than 
others that have glanders, or get dizzy and that have 
thrown thee off over their ears before thou wast even 
near the bull. He is sounder than an apple, for he has 
been twenty-eight years in a gas factory doing his duty 
like a decent person, without ever being found fault 
with. And now along comest thou, thou street-crier, 
abusing him with thy ‘buts’ and thy fault finding, as 
if he were a bad Christian.” 

“But I don’t want him! Get out! Keep him!” 

The contractor slowly approached Potaje, and with 


[ 336 ] 


eee 











BEHIND THE SCENES 


the ease of a man expert in these transactions whispered 
in his ear. The picador, pretending to be offended, finally 
walked up to the hack. He should n’t miss the sale on 
his account! He didn’t want to be taken for an in- 
tractable man, capable of injuring a comrade. 

Putting a foot in the stirrup he swung the weight of his 
body upon the poor horse. Then, holding the spear 
under his arm, he thrust it into a great post embedded in 
the wall, spearing it several times with tremendous 
force, as if he had a stout bull at the end of his lance. 
The poor hack trembled and bent his legs under these 
shocks. 

“He don’t turn badly,” said Potaje with conciliating 
tone. “The penco is better than I thought. He’s got 
a good mouth, good legs. Thou hast won. Let him be 
kept.” 

The picador dismounted, disposed to accept anything 
the contractor offered him after his mysterious “ aside.” 

Gallardo left the group of devotees who had laugh- 
ingly witnessed this performance. A porter of the plaza 
went with him to where the bulls were kept. He passed 
through a little door entering the corrales. 

A rubble wall that reached the height of a man’s neck 
surrounded the corral on three sides, strengthened by 
heavy posts united to the little upper balcony. Passages 
so narrow that a man could only go through them side- 
wise opened at certain distances. Eight bulls were in 
the spacious corral, some lying down, others standing 
with lowered heads sniffing at the pile of hay before 
them. The bull-fighter walked the length of these gal- 
leries examining the animals. At times he would come 
outside the barricade, his body looming up through the 


[ 337 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


marrow openings. He waved his arms, giving savage 
whoops of challenge that stirred the bulls out of their 
immobility. Some sprang nervously, attacking with low- 
ered head this man who came to disturb the peace of 
their enclosure. Others stood firm on their legs, wait- 
ing with raised heads and threatening mien for the rash 
being to approach them. 

Gallardo, who quickly hid himself again behind the 
barricades, examined the appearance and character of 
the wild beasts, without deciding which two he desired 
to choose. 

The plaza overseer was near him; a big athletic man, 
with leggings and spurs, dressed in coarse cloth and 
wearing a broad hat held by a chin strap. They had nick- 
named him Young Wolf; he was a rough rider who spent 
the greater part of the year in the open country, coming 
to Madrid like a savage, with no curiosity to see its 
streets nor desire to pass beyond the vicinity of the 
plaza. 

To his mind the capital of Spain was a ring with 
clearings and waste lands in its environs, and beyond 
these a mysterious series of houses with which he had 
felt no desire to become acquainted. The most important 
establishment in Madrid was, in his opinion, Gallina’s 
tavern, situated near the plaza, a pleasant realm of joy; 
an enchanting palace where he supped and ate at the 
manager’s cost, before returning to the pastures mounted 
on his steed, with his dark blanket over the pommel, his 
saddle bags on the croup, and his spear over his shoulder. 
He rejoiced in terrifying the servants of the tavern with 
his friendly greetings; terrible hand-clasps that made 
the bones crack and drew shrieks of terror. He smiled, 


[ 338 ] 








BEHIND THE SCENES 


proud of his strength and proud to be called “ brute,” 
and seated himself before his meal, a plate the size of 
a dishpan, full of meat and potatoes, besides a jug of 
wine. 

He tended the bulls acquired by the manager, some- 
times in the pasture grounds of Mufioza, or, when the 
heat was excessive, in the meadows among the Guadar- 
ramas. He brought them to the enclosure two days 
before the corrida, at midnight, crossing the arroyo Abro- 
fiigal, at the outskirts of Madrid, accompanied by horse- 
men and cowboys. He was in despair when bad weather 
prevented the bull-fight and the herd had to remain in 
the plaza, and he could not return immediately to the 
tranquil solitudes where he pastured the other bulls. 

Slow of speech, dull of thought, this centaur who 
smelled: of hide and hay expressed himself with warmth 
when he talked of his pastoral life herding wild beasts. 
The sky of Madrid seemed to him narrow and to have 
fewer stars. He described with picturesque loquacity 
the nights in the pasture with his bulls sleeping in the 
diffused light of the firmament and in the dense silence 
broken only by the mysterious noises from the thickets. 
The mountain snakes sang with a strange voice in this 
stillness. They sang, si, sefor! No one cared to dispute 
Young Wolf; he had heard it a thousand times, and to 
doubt this were to call him a liar, exposing oneself to 
feel the weight of his heavy hands. And as the reptiles 
sang, so the bulls talked, only that he had not managed 
to penetrate all the mysteries of their tongue. They 
were Christians although they walked on four legs and 
had horns. It was a fine sight to see them awaken 
when the morning light appeared. They sprang up joy- 


[ 339 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


fully like children; they played, pretending to attack, 
locking horns; they tried to ride one another with a 
noisy joy, as if they greeted the presence of the sun 
which is God’s glory. Then he told of his long excur- 
sions through the Guadarramas, following the course of 
the stream of liquid snow that flowed down from the 
mountain peaks, like transparent crystal, feeding the 
rivers and the meadows with their herbage dotted with 
tiny flowers; of the flapping of the wings of the birds 
that came and perched on the sleeping bulls’ horns; of 
the wolves that howled through the night, ever far away, 
very far away, as if frightened by the procession of 
primeval beasts that followed the leader’s bell to dis- 
pute with them the wild solitude. Let them not talk to 
him of Madrid, where the people were suffocated! The 
only acceptable things in this forest of houses were 
Gallina’s wine and his savory stews. 

Young Wolf talked to the swordsman and helped him 
by his advice to choose two animals. The overseer 
showed neither respect nor wonder in the presence of 
this famous man, so admired by the people. The bull- 
herder almost hated the bull-fighter. Kill one of those 
noble animals, with all kinds of deceptions! A braver 
man was he who lived among them, passing before their 
horns in the solitude, without other defence than his arm, 
and with no applause whatever. 

As Gallardo left the corral another joined the group, 
greeting the maesiro with great respect. He was an old 
man, charged with the cleanliness of the plaza. He had 
spent many years in this employment and had known all 
the famous bull-fighters of his time. He went poorly 
clad, but frequently women’s rings glistened on his fin- 


[ 340 ] 








BEHIND THE SCENES 


gers, and he blew his nose upon a dainty lace-edged linen 
handkerchief, which he drew out of the depths of his 
blouse. 

Alone during the week he swept the immense ring, 
the tiers of seats and the boxes, without complaint as to 
the magnitude of this task. Whenever the manager 
found fault and threatened to punish him by opening 
the door to the vagabonds who idled around outside the 
plaza, the poor man in desperation promised to mend, 
so that this unwelcome irruption of scavengers might not 
cheat him of his spoil. At the most, he admitted half 
a dozen rogues, bull-fight apprentices, who were faith- 
ful to him in exchange for his permitting them on festal 
days to see the corrida from “the dogs’ box,” a door with 
a grille situated near the bull-pens, through which the 
wounded combatants were carried out. These assist- 
ants, clutching the iron bars, witnessed the corrida, strug- 
gling and fighting like monkeys in a cage to occupy the 
front row. 

The old man distributed them skilfully during the 
week as the cleaning of the plaza progressed. The 
youngsters worked in the seats in the sun occupied by 
the poor and dirty public, which leaves in its wake a 
scrap-heap of orange skins, papers, and cigar stubs. 

“Look out for the tobacco,” he ordered his troop.. 
“ Any one that holds on to a single cigar stub won't see 
the bull-fight Sunday.” 

He patiently cleaned the shady side, bending over like 
a treasure-seeker in the mystery of the boxes to put the 
findings in his pockets; ladies’ fans, rings, handker- 
chiefs, lost coins, all that an invasion of fourteen thou- 
sand persons leaves in its wake. He heaped up the 


[ 341 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


smokers’ leavings, mincing the stubs and selling them 
for pulverized tobacco after exposing them to the sun. 
The valuables were for a pawnbrokeress who bought 
these spoils of a public forgetful or overcome by 
emotion. 

Gallardo answered the old man’s pleasant greetings 
by giving him a cigar, and he took leave of Young Wolf. 
It was agreed with the overseer that he should shut up 
the two chosen bulls for him. The other swordsmen 
would not protest. They were boys in good luck, in the 
flower of their youthful bravery, who killed whatever 
was put before them. 

Going out into the courtyard again where the horse- 
testing was going on Gallardo saw a man move away 
from the group of spectators; he was tall, spare, and 
of a coppery complexion, dressed like a bull-fighter. Be- 
neath his black hat locks of grayish hair fell over his 
ears, and he was wrinkled around the mouth. 

“Pescadero! How art thou?” said Gallardo, pressing 
his hand with sincere effusion. 

He was an old-time swordsman who had had hours 
of glory in his youth, but whose name few remembered. 
Other matadores coming after had obscured his poor fame, 
and Pescadero, after fighting bulls in America and suf- 
fering various wounds, had retired with a small capital 
of savings. Gallardo knew that he was the owner of a 
tavern in the vicinity of the ring where he vegetated far 
from the devotees and bull-fighters’ trade. He did not 
expect to see him in the plaza, but Pescadero said with 
a melancholy expression: “ What brings me here? De- 
votion to the game. I seldom come to the bull-fights, 
but affairs of the trade still attract me, and I come in a 


[ 342 ] 








BEHIND THE SCENES 


neighborly fashion to see these things. Now I am noth- 
ing but a tavern keeper.” 

Gallardo, contemplating his forlorn appearance, 
thought of the Pescadero he had known in his youth, one 
of his most admired heroes, arrogant, favored by the 
women, a notable figure in Campana Street when he 
went to Seville, with his velvet hat, his wine-colored 
jacket, and his silken girdle, leaning on a gold-headed 
cane. And thus would he become, common and forgot- 
ten if he retired from bull-fighting. 

They discussed professional matters a long time. Pes- 
cadero, like all old men embittered by bad luck, was a 
pessimist. There were no good bull-fighters any more. 
Only Gallardo and a few others killed bulls in classic 
style. Even the beasts seemed less powerful. And after 
these lamentations he insisted on his friend accompany- 
ing him to his house. Since they had met, and the 
matador had nothing to do, he must visit his establish- 
ment. 

Gallardo smiled, and asked about the school of tau- 
romachy established by Pescadero near his tavern. 

“What wouldst thou, son!” said the latter apologet- 
ically. ‘One has to help oneself, and the school yields 
more than all the customers of the tavern. Very good 
people come, young gentlemen who want to learn so 
as to shine in bullock-fights, foreigners that grow en- 
thusiastic at the bull-fights and get a crazy notion to 
become bull-fighters in their old age. I have one taking © 
a lesson now. He comes every afternoon. Thou shalt 
see.” 

After taking a glass of wine at the tavern they crossed 
the street and entered a place surrounded by a high 


[ 343 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


wall. On the boards nailed together, that served as a 
door, was posted a great bill which announced, “ School 
of Tauromachy.” 

They entered. The first thing that claimed Gallardo’s 
attention was the bull, an animal made of wood and 
rushes, mounted on wheels, with a tail of tow, head of 
braided straw, a section of cork in place of a neck, and 
a pair of genuine and enormous horns which inspired the 
pupils with terror. 

A bare-breasted youth, wearing a cap and two hanks 
of hair over his ears, communicated activity to the beast 
by pushing it when the students stood before it cape 
in hand. 

In the centre of the enclosure a round, corpulent old 
man with a red face stood in his shirt-sleeves holding 
an armful of banderillas. Near the wall, slouching in one 
chair and resting her arms on another, was a lady of 
about the same age and not less voluminous, wearing 
a beflowered hat. Her florid face, with spots as yellow 
as chaff, dilated with enthusiasm every time her com- 
panion performed a good feat. The roses on her hat, and 
her false curls of a ridiculous blonde hue, shook with 
laughter as she applauded. 

Standing in the doorway Pescadero explained these 
people to Gallardo. They must be French, or natives of 
some other foreign country—he was not sure where 
they were from nor did it matter to him. They were a 
married couple who travelled about the world and seemed 
to have lived everywhere. He had had a thousand 
trades, to judge from his tales; miner in Africa; colonist 
in distant isles; hunter of horses with a lasso in the sol- 
itudes of America. Now he wished to fight bulls —to 


[ 344 ] 








BEHIND THE SCENES 


earn money as did the Spaniards; and he attended the 
school every afternoon, with the determination of a stub- 
born child, paying generously for his lessons. 

“Imagine it; a bull-fighter with that shape and well 
past fifty years of age!” 

When the pupil saw the two men enter, he lowered 
his arms laden with banderillas, and the lady arranged her 
skirt and flowery hat. Oh, cher maitre! — 

“ Good-afternoon Mosii; greetings, Madame,” said the 
master, raising his hand to his hat. ‘“‘ Let us see, Mosiu, 
how the lesson is getting on. You know what I have 
told you. Firm on your ground, you stir up the beast, 
you let him come on, and when you have him beside 
you, aim, and put the barbs in his neck. You don’t have 
to worry yourself about anything; the bull will do every- 
thing for you. Attention! Are we ready?” 

The master moved away, and the pupil faced the ter- 
rible bull, or rather the gamin who was behind it, his 
hands on its hind quarters to push it. 

“ A-a-a-a! Come on, Morito!” 

Pescadero gave a frightful bellow to cause the animal 
to charge, exciting, with yells and with furious stamping 
on the ground, this animal with entrails of air and rushes, 
and a head of straw. Morito charged like a wild beast, 
with great clatter of wheels, bobbing his head up and 
down as he moved, the page who pushed him bringing 
up the rear. Never could bull of famous breed compare 
in intelligence with this Morito, immortal beast, stuck 
full of barbs and sword-thrusts thousands of times, suf- 
fering no other wounds than such insignificant ones 
as a carpenter cures. He seemed as wise as man. On 
drawing near the pupil, he changed his course so as not 


[ 345 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


to touch him with his horns, moving away with the barbs 
lodged in his cork neck. 

An ovation greeted this ‘heroic feat, the banderillero re- 
maining firm in his place, arranging the suspenders of 
his trousers and the cuffs of his shirt. 

“ Masterful, Mosii!” shouted Pescadero. “That pair 
is first class!” 

The foreigner, moved by the professor’s applause, re- 
sponded with modesty, beating his breast: 

“ Me got the most important. Courage, mucho courage.” 

Then, to celebrate his deed, he turned to Morito’s page, 
who seemed to lick his lips in anticipation of the order. 
Let a bottle of wine be fetched. Three empty ones lay on 
the ground near the lady, who was constantly growing 
more purple in the face, wriggling in her clothing, greet- 
ing her companion’s tauromachic exploits with great 
shouts of laughter. 

On learning that he who had just arrived with the 
teacher was the famous Gallardo, and on recognizing his 
countenance so often admired by her in the newspapers 
and on match-boxes, the foreign woman lost color and 
her eyes grew tender. Oh, cher maitre! She smiled at 
him, she rubbed against him, desiring to fall into his 
arms with all the weight of her voluminous and flabby 
person. 

Glasses were clinked to the glory of the new bull- 
fighter. Even Morito took part in the feast, the steward 
who acted as nurse drinking: in his name. 

“Before two months, Mositi,” said Pescadero, with his 
Andalusian gravity, “you will be sticking banderillas in 
the plaza of Madrid like the very God himself, and you 
will have all the applause, all the money, and all the 
women — with your lady’s permission.” 


[ 346 ] 








BEHIND THE SCENES 


The lady, without ceasing to gaze upon Gallardo with 
tender eyes, was moved with joy, and a noisy laugh 
shook her waves of fat. 

Pescadero accompanied Gallardo down the street. 

“ Adios, Juan,” he said gravely. “Maybe we "ll see 
each other in the plaza to-morrow. Thou seest what I 
have come to—to earn my bread by these frauds and 
clown-tricks.” 

Gallardo walked away, thoughtful. Ah! that man 
whom he had seen throw money around in his good 
times with the arrogance of a prince, sure of his future! 
He had lost his savings in bad speculations. A bull- 
fighter’s life was not one in which to learn the manage- 
ment of a fortune. And yet they proposed that he retire 
from his profession! Never. 

He must get close to the bulls! 


[347] 


CHAPTER XVI 
“THE GREATEST MAN IN THE WORLD” 


URING the whole night one dominant thought 
floated over the dark lake of Gallardo’s dreams. 
He must get close! And the next morning the resolution 
was firmly rooted in his mind. He would get close, and 
astound the public by his brave deeds. Such was his 
mettle that he went to the plaza free from the supersti- 
tious fears of former times. He felt the certainty of 
triumph, the presentiment of his glorious afternoons. 
The corrida was unlucky from the start. The first bull 
“came in fighting,” furiously attacking the men on 
horseback. In an instant he had thrown the three picadores 
who awaited him lance in socket, and two of the hacks, 
lay dying, streams of dark blood gushing from their per- 
forated chests. The other horse ran across the plaza, 
mad with pain and surprise. The bull, attracted by this 
race, ran after him, and lowering his powerful head be- 
neath his belly, raised him on his horns and threw him 
on the ground, venting his rage on the poor broken and 
punctured hulk. As the wild beast left it kicking and 
dying, a mono sabio approached to finish it, burying his 
dagger blade in the crown of his head. The wretched 
hack showed the fury of a lion in his death struggles 
and bit the man, who gave a scream and shook his bleed- 
ing right hand, pressing on the dagger until the horse 
ceased kicking and lay with rigid limbs. Other plaza 


[ 348 ] 








ee 


‘GREATEST MAN IN THE WORLD” 


employees came running from all directions with great 
baskets of sand to throw in heaps over the pools of blood 
and the dead bodies of the horses. 

The public was on its feet, gesticulating and vociferat- 
ing. It was filled with enthusiasm by the bull’s fierce- 
ness and protested because there was not a picador in 
the ring, shouting in chorus: “ Horses, horses!” 

Everybody knew they would come in immediately, 
but it infuriated them to have an interval pass with- 
out new carnage. The bull stood alone in the centre of 
the ring proud and bellowing, raising his blood-stained 
horns, the ribbons of the emblem on his lacerated neck 
fluttering in the breeze. 

New horsemen appeared and the repugnant spectacle 
was repeated. The picador had barely approached with 
spear held in advance, reining his horse to one side so 
that the bandaged eye would prevent his seeing the bull, 
when the shock and fall were instantaneous. Javelins 
proke with the cracking sound of dry wood; the gored 
horse was raised on the powerful horns; blood spouted ; 
bits of hide and flesh fell after the shock of mortal com- 
bat; the picador rolled along the sand like a yellow-legged 
puppet and was immediately covered by the attendants’ 
capes. 

The public hailed the riders’ noisy falls with shouting 
and laughter. The arena resounded with the shock of 
their heavy bodies and their iron-covered legs. Some 
fell backwards like stuffed sacks, and their heads, as they 
encountered the boards of the barricade, awoke a dis- 
mal echo. 

“Hell never get up again,” shouted the people. “te 
must have busted his melon.” 


[ 349 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


But he did get up again; he extended his arms, 
scratched his head, recovered his heavy beaver hat lost 
in the fall, and remounted the same horse which the 
monos sabios forced upon its feet with pushes and blows. 
The gay horseman urged his steed into a trot, and astride 
the agonized wreck rode to meet the wild beast again. 

“Good for you!” he shouted, throwing his hat at a 
group of friends. 

No sooner did he stand before the bull, thrusting his 
lance into the neck, than man and horse rose on high, the 
two immediately falling apart from the violence of the 
shock, and rolling in different directions. Again, before 
the bull attacked, the monos sabios and some of the audience 
warned the horseman. “Dismount!” But before his 
rigid legs would allow him to do so, the horse fell flat, 
instantly dead, and the picador was hurled over his ears 
his head striking the arena with a resounding thud. 

The bull’s horns never managed to gore the riders, but 
those lying on the ground apparently lifeless were carried 
by the peones to the infirmary to have their broken bones 
set or to be resuscitated from deathlike unconsciousness. 

Gallardo, eager to attract the sympathy of the audi- 
ence, hurried from place to place; he received great ap- 
plause at one time for pulling a bull’s tail to save a pica- 
dor who lay on the ground at the point of being gored. 

While the bandcrillas were being placed,. Gallardo 
leaned against the barrier and gazed along the boxes. 
Dofia Sol must be in one of them. At last he saw her, 
but without her white mantilla, without anything to re- 
mind him of that Sevillian lady dressed like one of Goya’s 
majas. One might think her, with her blonde hair and 
her novel and elegant hat, one of those foreign women 


[ 350 ] 








‘“‘GREATEST MAN IN THE WORLD” 


attending a bull-fight for the first time. . At her side was 
the friend, that man of whom she talked with admiration 
and to whom she was showing the interesting features of 
the country. Ah, Dofia Sol! Soon she should see of 
what mettle was the brave youth she had abandoned! 
She would have to applaud him in the presence of the 
hated stranger; she would be transported and moved 
against her will by the enthusiasm of the audience. 
When the moment arrived for Gallardo to kill his first 
bull, the second on the programme, the public received 
him kindly as if it had forgotten its anger at the pre- 


vious bull-fight. The two weeks of suspension on ac- 





count of the rain seemed to have produced great toler- 
ance in the multitude. They were willing to find every- 
thing acceptable in a corrida so long awaited. Besides, 
the fierceness of the bulls and the great mortality of 
horses had put the public in a good humor. 

Gallardo strode up to the bull, his head uncovered after 
his salutation, with the muleta held before him, and swing- 
ing his sword like a cane. Behind him, although at a 
prudent distance, followed Nacional and another bull- 
fighter. A few voices from the rows of seats protested. 
“How many acolytes!” It resembled a parish priest 
going to a funeral. 

“Stand aside, everybody!” shouted Gallardo. 

The two peones paused, because he said it as if he 
meant it, with an accent that left no room for doubt. 

He strode ahead until near the wild beast, and there 
he unrolled his muleta, making a few passes more like 
those of his old times, until he thrust the rag near the 
drivelling muzzle. “A good play! Hurrah!” A mur- 
mur of satisfaction ran along the tiers of seats. The 


[ 352 ] 


. THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


bull-fighter of Seville had redeemed his name; he had 
bull-fighter pride! He was going to do some of his own 
feats, as in his better days. His pases de muleta were ac- 
companied by noisy exclamations of enthusiasm, while 
his partisans became reanimated and rebuked their ene- 
mies. What did they think of that? Gallardo was care- 
less sometimes—they knew that— but any afternoon 
when he wished — ! 

That was one of the good afternoons. When he saw 
the bull standing with motionless fore-feet, the public 
itself fired him with its advice. “Now! Thrust!” 

Gallardo threw himself against the wild beast with the 
sword presented, but rapidly moved away from the dan- 
ger of the horns. 

Applause arose, but it was short; a threatening mur- 
mur cut by strident hisses followed. The enthusiasts 
ceased looking at the bull to face the rest of the public 
with indignation. What injustice! What lack of knowl- 
edge! He had started in at the killing well enough — 

But the enemies pointed to the bull derisively persist- 
ing in their protests, and the whole plaza joined in a 
deafening explosion of hisses. The sword had pene- 
trated obliquely — passing through the bull’s body, its 
point appearing through one side, near his fore-leg. The 
people gesticulated and waved their arms with roars of 
indignation. What a scandal! Even a bad bullock- 
fighter would not make such a stroke as that! 

The animal, with the hilt of the sword in his neck, and 
the point protruding through the joint of his fore-leg, 
began to limp, his enormous mass quivering with the 
movement of his unsteady tread. This spectacle seemed 
to move the audience with generous indignation. Poor 


[ 352 ] 





: 


ae 





‘‘GREATEST MAN IN THE WORLD” 


bull! So good; so noble. Some leaned forward, raging 
with fury, as if they would throw themselves head fore- 
most into the ring. Thief—son of a thief! To thus 
martyrize an animal that was better than he. And all 
shouted with impetuous sympathy for the animal's suf- 
fering, as if they had not paid their money to witness 
his death. 

Gallardo, astounded at his act, bowed his head beneath 
the storm of insults and threats. “Cursed be the luck.” 
He had started in to kill just as in his better epoch, dom- 
inating the nervous feeling that forced him to turn away 
his face as if he could not bear the sight of the wild 
beast that charged him. But desire to avoid danger, to 
immediately escape from between the horns, had caused 
him to lose his luck again with that stupid and scandal- 
ous thrust. 

The people on the tiers of seats stirred restlessly with 
the fervor of numerous disputes. “He doesn’t under- 
stand. He turns away his face. He has made a fool of 
himself.” Gallardo’s partisans excused their idol, but 
with less fervency. “That might happen to anybody. 
It is a misfortune. The important thing is to start in 
to kill with spirit as he does.” 

The bull, after running and limping with painful steps 
which made the crowd howl with indignation, stood mo- 
tionless, so as not to prolong his martyrdom. 

Gallardo grasped another sword, walked up and faced 
the bull. 

The public divined his task. He must finish him by 
pricking him in the base of the brain; the only thing he 
could do after his crime. 

He held the point of the sword between the two horns, 


[ 353 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


while with the other hand he shook the muleia so that 
the animal, attracted by the rag, would lower his head 
to the ground. He pressed on the sword, and the bull, 
feeling himself wounded, tossed his head throwing out 
the instrument. 

“One!” shouted the multitude with mocking una- 
nimity. 

The matador repeated his play and again drove in the 
sword, making the wild beast shudder. 

“Two!” they sang mockingly from the bleachers. 

He tried again to touch the vulnerable spot with no 
other result than a bellow of pain from the animal, tor- 
tured by this martyrdom. 

“ Three!” 

Hisses and shouts of protest were united to this ironic 
chorus on the part of the public. When was that fool 
going to get through? 

Finally he succeeded in touching with the point of his 
sword the beginning of the spinal cord, the centre of 
life, and the bull fell instantly, lying on his side with 
rigid legs. 

The swordsman wiped the sweat off his brow and be- 
gan his return to the president’s box with slow step, 
breathing heavily. At last he was free of that animal. 
He had thought he would never finish. The public re- 
ceived him with sarcasms as he passed, or with disdainful 
silence. None applauded. He saluted the president in 
the midst of general indifference, and took refuge behind 
the barrier, like a pupil shamed by his faults. While 
Garabato offered him a glass of water, the matador looked 
at the boxes, meeting the eyes of Dofia Sol which had 
followed him into his retreat. What must that woman 


[ 354 ] 





“GREATEST MAN IN THE WORLD” 


think of him! How she and her friend would laugh on 
seeing him insulted by the public! What a damnable 
idea of that lady to come to the bull-fight! 

He remained between barriers avoiding all fatigue un- 
til the next bull he was to kill should be let out., His 
wounded leg pained him on account of his having run so 
much. He was no longer himself; he knew it now. His 
arrogance and his resolve to get closer resulted in noth- 
ing. His legs were no longer swift and sure as in former 
times, nor had his right arm that daring that made him 
extend it fearlessly, eager to reach the bull’s neck 
without delay. Now it bent disobedient to his will, with 
the blind instinct of certain animals that shrink and hide 
their faces, thinking thus to avoid danger. 

His old-time superstitions suddenly awoke, terrifying 
and obsessing him. 

“T feel that something is going to happen,” thought 
Gallardo. “My heart tells me that the fifth bull will 
catch me—he’ll catch me — there is no escape.” 

However, when the fifth bull came out, the first thing 
he met was Gallardo’s cape. What an animal! He 
seemed different from the one he had chosen in the corral 
the day before. Surely they had changed the order in 
regard to letting out the bulls. Fear kept ringing in the 
pull-fighter’s ears. “ Bad sign! He’ll catch me; I’ll go 
out of the ring to-day foot foremost.” 

In spite of this he kept on fighting the wild beast and 
drawing it away from picadores in danger. At first his 
feats were received in silence. Then the public, soften- 
ing, applauded him mildly. When it came time for the 
death-stroke and Gallardo squared himself before the 
wild beast, every one seemed to divine the confusion of 


[ 355] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


his mind. He moved as if disconcerted; the bull no 
sooner tossed his head than, taking the attitude for an 
advance, he stepped back, receding by great springs, 
while the public greeted these attempts at flight with a 
chorus of jests. 

“Ouch! Ouch! He’ll catch thee!” 

Suddenly, as if he wished to end it by any means, he 
threw himself upon the animal with the sword, but 
obliquely, so as to escape from danger as soon as possi- 
ble. An explosion of hisses and voices! The sword 
was embedded but a few inches, and after vibrating in 
the wild beast’s neck, was shaken out and hurled far 
away. 

Gallardo took his sword again and approached the 
bull. He squared himself to go in to kill and the wild 
beast charged at the same instant. He longed to flee 
but his legs no longer had the agility of other times. 
He was struck and rolled over from the shock. Aid 
came, and Gallardo arose covered with dirt, with a great 
rent in the seat of his trousers through which his white 
underclothing escaped, and minus a slipper and the mona 
which adorned his queue. 

The arrogant youth whom the public had so much 
admired for his elegance, presented a pitiful and absurd 
appearance with his clothes awry, his hair disarranged, 
his coleta fallen and undone like a limp tail. 

Several capes were mercifully extended around him to 
aid and shield him. The other bull-fighters, with gen- 
erous comradeship, even prepared the bull so that he 
could finish with it quickly. But Gallardo seemed blind 
and deaf; no sooner did he see the animal than he stepped 
back at his lightest charges, as if the recent upsetting had 


[ 356 ] 





“GREATEST MAN IN THE WORLD” 


maddened him with fear. He did not understand what 
his comrades said to him, but, with his face intensely 
pale, and frowning as though to concentrate his mind, 
he stammered, not knowing what he said: 

“Stand aside, everybody! Leave me alone!” 

Meanwhile fear kept singing through his brain: “ To- 
day thou diest. To-day is thy last goring.” 

The public divined the swordsman’s thought from his 
confused movements. 

“ The bull makes him sick. He has become afraid!” 

Even Gallardo’s most fervent partisans kept silent 
through shame, unable to explain this occurrence never 
before seen. 

The people seemed to revel in his terror, with the un- 
daunted courage of those who are in a place of safety. 
Others, thinking of their money, shouted against this 
man who let himself be ruled by the instinct of self- 
preservation, defrauding them of their joy. A robbery! 
Vile people insulted the swordsman, expressing doubt 
as to his sex. Odium had brought to light and spread 
abroad, after many years of adulation, certain mem- 
ories of the bull-fighter’s youth, forgotten even by him- 
self. They recalled his nocturnal life with the vagabonds 
on the Alameda of Hercules. They laughed at his torn 
breeches and at the white clothing that escaped through 
the rent. 

“Tf thou couldst see thyself!” shouted shrill voices, 
with feminine accent. 

Gallardo, protected by his companions’ capes, took ad- 
vantage of all the bull’s distractions to wound him with 
his sword, deaf to the mocking of the public. 

He dealt thrusts that the animal barely felt. His ter- 


[ 357 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


ror at being caught lengthened his arm and caused him 
to stand at a distance, wounding only with the point of 
the sword. 

Some blades were scarcely embedded in the flesh, and 
fell; others remained lodged in bone but were uncovered 
in their greater length, vibrating with the movements of 
the bull which walked with lowered head, following the 
contour of the wall, bellowing as if with weariness at 
the useless torment. The swordsman followed him, mu- 
leta in hand, eager to finish him, yet fearful of exposing 
himself, and behind came the whole troop of assistants 
moving their capes as if they wished to induce the ani- 
mal by the waving of their rags to bend his legs and lie 
down. 

The bull’s journey about the ring close to the barrier, 
his muzzle drivelling, his neck bristling with swords, pro- 
voked an explosion of mockery and insult. 

“Tt is the Via Dolorosa,” they said. 

Others compared the animal to a cushion full of pins. 
Thief! Miserable bull-puncher! 

Some, more vile, persisted in their insults to Gallardo’s 
sex, changing his name. 

“ Juanita, don’t get lost 

A long time passed and a part of the public, wishing to 
discharge its fury against something higher than the 
bull-fighter, turned towards the presidential box. “ Sefior. 
Presidente!”” How long was this scandal going to last? 

The president made a sign that quieted the protes- 
tants and gave an order. A minor official with his 
plumed shovel-hat and floating cape was seen to run 
along behind the barrier until he stood near the bull. 
There, turning to Gallardo, he held out his hand, with 


[ 358 ] 


9? 
! 





“GREATEST MAN IN THE WORLD” 
ff 


his index finger raised. The public applauded. It was 
the first notice. If the bull was not killed before the 
third, he would be returned to the corral, leaving the 
swordsman under the stain of the greatest dishonor. 

Gallardo, as if awakening from his dream, terrified at 
this threat, raised his sword and threw himself upon the 
bull. Another thrust that barely penetrated the bull’s 
body. 

The swordsman let fall his arms in dejection. Surely 
the beast was immortal. Sword-thrusts made no im- 
pression on him. It seemed as if he would never fall. 

The inefficiency of the last stroke infuriated the pub- 
lic. Every one rose to his feet. The hisses were deaf- 
ening, obliging the women to cover their ears. Many 
waved their arms, bending forward, as if they wished 
to hurl themselves into the plaza. Oranges, bread crusts, 
seat cushions, flew into the ring like swift projectiles 
aimed at the matador. Stentorian voices rose from the 
seats in the sun, roars like those of a steam siren, which 
it seemed incredible should be produced by the human 
throat. From time to time a deafening clamor of bells 
pealed forth with furious strokes. A derisive chorus near 
the bull pens chanted the gorigori of the dead. 

Many turned towards the president. When would the 
second notice be given? Gallardo wiped off the sweat 
with his handkerchief, gazing in all directions as if sur- 
prised at the injustice of the public, and making the bull 
responsible for all that occurred. At that moment his 
eyes rested on Dowia Sol’s box. She turned her back so 
as not to see the ring; perhaps she felt pity for him; per- 
haps she was ashamed of her condescensions in the past. 

Again he threw himself upon the animal to kill, but 


[359 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


few could see what he did, for he was hidden by the open 
capes hung continually about him. The bull fell, a 
stream of blood gushing cut of his mouth. 

At last! The public became less restless, ceasing to 
gesticulate, but the shouts and hisses continued. The 
beast was finished by the puniillero; the swords were 
drawn out, he was harnessed by the head to a team of 
mules and dragged from the ring, leaving a broad belt of 
smoothed earth and pools of blood which the attendants 
obliterated with the rake and baskets of sand. 

Gallardo hid himself between barriers, fleeing from the 
insulting protests which his presence raised. There he 
remained, tired and panting for breath, with his leg ach- 
ing, but in the midst of his dejection feeling satisfaction 
at being free from danger. He had not died on the wild 
beast’s horns, but he owed his safety to his prudence. 
Ah, the public! A multitude of assassins that hankers 
for a man’s death as if they alone made good use of life 
and had a family. 

His departure from the plaza was sad, behind the 
crowd that filled the environs of the ring, the carriages, 
the automobiles, the long rows of tram-cars. 

His coach rolled along slowly to avoid driving over 
the groups of spectators coming out of the plaza. These 
separated to let the mules pass, but as they recognized 
the swordsman they seemed to repent their amiability. 
In the movement of their lips Gallardo read tremendous 
insults. Other carriages in which rode handsome women 
in white mantillas passed near his. Some turned their 
heads so as not to see the bull-fighter; others looked on 
him with eyes of pitying commiseration. 

The matador shrank as if he wished to pass unnoticed. 


[ 360 ] 








‘‘GREATEST MAN IN THE WORLD” 


He hid behind the corpulence of Nacional who rode silent 
and frowning. 

A crowd of boys following the carriage broke out into 
hisses. Many who were standing on the sidewalks imi- 
tated them, thinking thus to avenge themselves for their 
poverty, which had compelled them to remain outside 
the plaza the whole afternoon in a vain hope of seeing 
something. 

The news of Gallardo’s failure had circulated among 
them and they insulted him, glad to humiliate a man 
who earned enormous riches. 

This outburst aroused the swordsman from the mute 
resignation into which he had fallen. 

“Curse it! But why do they hiss? Have they been 
at the bull-fight? Have they paid out their money?” 

A stone struck against a wheel of the coach. The 
vagabonds were shouting at the very steps, but two 
guards rode up on horse-back and quelled the disturb- 
ance, afterward escorting all the way up Alcala Street 
the famous Juan Gallardo— “the greatest man in the 
world.” 


[ 361 ] 


CHAPTER XVII 
THE ATONEMENT OF BLOOD 


HE cuadrillas had just entered the ring when loud 
blows were heard on the door of the Caballerizas. 

A plaza employee approached it shouting with ill- 
humor. Nobody entered there; they must go to another 
door. But an insistent voice answered him from without, 
and he opened it. 

A man and a woman entered; he wearing a white Cor- 
dovan hat, she dressed in black and with a maniilla over 
her head. 

The man grasped the employee’s hand, leaving some- 
thing in it that humanized his fierce aspect. 

“You know me, don’t you?” said the newcomer. 
“ Really, don’t you know me? I am Gallardo’s brother- 
in-law and this lady is his wife.” 

Carmen gazed all around the abandoned courtyard. 
In the distance, behind the thick brick walls, sounded 
music, and the respiration of the multitude could be felt, 
broken by shouts of enthusiasm and murmurs of curios- 
ity. The cuadrillas were defiling before the president. 

“Where is he?” anxiously inquired Carmen. 

“Where should he be, woman?” replied the brother- 
in-law brusquely. “In the plaza, doing his duty. It 
is madness to have come; nonsense. Oh, this weak char- 
acter of mine!” 

Carmen continued gazing about her, but with a cer- 


[ 362 | 





THE ATONEMENT OF BLOOD 


tain indecision, as if repentant for having come there. 
What was she to do? 

The employee moved by Antonio’s hand pressure, or 
by the relationship of those two persons to the matador 
of fame, became obsequious. If the lady wished to await 
the termination of the bull-fight, she might rest at the 
conciérge’s house. If they chose to see the corrida, he 
could get them a good place, although they had no 
tickets. 

Carmen shuddered at this proposition. See the bull- 
fight? No. She had come to the plaza by an effort of 
her will, and she regretted it. It was impossible for her 
to endure the sight of her husband in the ring. She had 
never seen him fighting bulls. She would wait there 
until she could bear it no longer. 

“God help me!” said the leather-worker with resig- 
nation. “We will stay, though I don’t know what we 
shall do here in front of the stables.” 

Encarnacion’s husband had been following after his 
sister-in-law since the day before, putting up with her 
hysteria and tears of nervousness excited by fear. 

Saturday at midday Carmen had talked to him in her 
husband’s office. She was going to Madrid! She was 
determined on taking this journey. She could not live 
in Seville. She had spent a week of insomnia, seeing 
horrible visions. Her feminine instinct warned her of 
some great danger. She must rush to Juan’s side. She 
did not know why, nor what she could accomplish by the 
journey, but she longed to be near Gallardo, with that 
affectionate desire that believes it can minimize danger 
by being close to the person beloved. 

This was not living! She had learned through the 


[ 363 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


daily papers about Juan’s bad luck the Sunday before in 
the Plaza of Madrid. She understood bull-fighter pro- 
fessional pride. She guessed that he would not tolerate 
this misfortune with resignation. He would do mad 
deeds to reconquer the applause of the public. The last 
letter she had received from him gave her to understand 
it vaguely. 

“Yes, yes!” she said energetically to her brother-in- 
law, “Iam going to Madrid this very afternoon. If thou 
wishest, thou mayest accompany me; if thou dost not 
wish to come, I will go alone. Above all—not a word 
to Don José; he would prevent the trip. No one knows 
about it but Mamita.” 

The leather-worker accepted. A free trip to Madrid, 
although in such sad company! On the way, Carmen 
gave expression to her fears. She would talk to her hus- 
band forcefully. Why continue fighting bulls? Had 
they not enough to live on? He must retire, and im- 
mediately; if not, she would die. This corrida must be 
the last. Even this one seemed more than she could 
bear. She would arrive in Madrid in time to prevent 
her husband working that afternoon. Her heart told her 
that by her presence she would prevent a great calamity. 
But her brother-in-law protested in consternation on 
hearing this. 

“What barbarity! What women are! They get an 
idea in the head, and things must be so. Dost thou be- 
lieve, then, that there is no authority, nor laws, nor rules 
of the plaza, and that it is enough for a woman to take 
a notion to embrace her husband when she gets fright- 
ened, to suspend a corrida and leave the public with its 
thumb on its nose? Thou mayest say what thou wilt 


[ 364 ] 





THE ATONEMENT OF BLOOD 


to Juan, but it must be after the bull-fight. Authority 
can’t be played with; we would all go to jail.” 

The leather-worker imagined the most dramatic con- 
sequences if Carmen persisted in her absurd idea of pre- 
senting herself to her husband in order to prevent his 
bull-fighting. They would all be locked up. He already 
saw himself in prison as an accomplice to this act which 
in his simplicity he considered a crime. 

When they reached Madrid he had to make renewed 
efforts to prevent his companion from rushing to the 
hotel where her husband was. What good would that 
do? 

“Thou wilt confuse him by thy presence and he will 
go to the plaza in a bad humor, excited, and if anything 
happens to him’the fault will be thine.” 

This idea subdued Carmen and caused her to follow 
her brother-in-law’s advice. She allowed herself to be 
taken to a hotel of his selection, and she remained there 
all the morning lying on a sofa in her room, weeping as 
if she were sure of coming adversity. The leather- 
worker, happy to be in Madrid, well housed, waxed in- 
dignant against this despair which seemed to him absurd. 

“ Man alive! What women are! Any one would think 
thou art a widow, while thy husband is at this very mo- 
ment getting ready for the corrida hale and hearty as 
Roger de Flor himself. What nonsense!” 

Carmen scarcely ate any breakfast, deaf to the praises 
her brother-in-law rendered the cook of the establish- 
ment. In the afternoon her resignation vanished again. 

The hotel was situated near the Puerta del Sol and the 
noise and stir of the people going to the bull-fight reached 
her. No, she could not stay in that strange room while 


[ 365 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


her husband risked his life. She must see him. She 
lacked courage to witness the spectacle, but she longed 
to be near him; she must go to the plaza. Where was 
the plaza? She had never seen it. If she could not en- 
ter, she would wander around its environs. The im- 
portant thing was to feel herself near, believing that by 
this proximity she could influence Gallardo’s luck. 

The leather-worker protested. By the life of —! He 
intended to see the bull-fght; he had gone out and 
bought a ticket and now Carmen spoiled his pleasure by 
her determination to go to the plaza. 

“ But what wilt thou do there, girl? What wilt thou 
better by thy presence? Imagine if Juaniyo should 
chance to see thee.” 

They argued long, but the woman answered all his 
reasoning with the same firm reply: 

“Thou needst not accompany me; I will go alone.” 

The brother-in-law at last surrendered and they rode 
to the plaza in a hired coach. The leather-worker re- 
membered a great deal about the amphitheatre and its 
dependencies from having accompanied Gallardo on one 
of his trips to-Madrid for the spring bull-fights. 

He and the employee were undecided and ill humored 
in the presence of this woman with reddened eyes and 
sunken cheeks who stood planted in the courtyard un- 
certain what to do. The two men felt themselves drawn 
by the murmur of the crowd and the music that rose 
from the plaza. Must they stand there the whole after- 
noon and not see the bull-fight? 

The employee had a brilliant inspiration. 

If the lady wished to pass into the chapel — 

The defiling of the cuadrillas was over. Some horsemen 


[ 366 ] 





THE ATONEMENT OF BLOOD 


came trotting out of the door that gave access to the 
ring. They were picadores who were not on duty and 
were retiring from the arena to substitute their compan- 
ions when their turn came. Hitched to some rings in the 
wall stood a row of six saddled horses, the first that must 
enter the plaza to supply those fallen. Behind them the 
lancers passed the time making evolutions with their 
steeds. A stable boy mounted a skittish wild mare and 
galloped her along the corral to tire her, and then turned 
her over to the piqueros. 

The hacks, tortured by the flies, stamped their feet, 
pulling on the rings as if they divined the coming dan- 
ger. The other horses trotted, urged on by the riders’ 
spurs. 

Carmen and her brother-in-law had to take refuge un- 
der the arcades, and finally the bull-fighter’s wife accepted 
the invitation to pass into the chapel. It was a safe and 
tranquil place and there she could do something useful 
for her husband. 

When she entered the sacred room with its atmos- 
phere made dense by the respiration of the public that 
had witnessed the bull-fighters’ prayers, Carmen gazed 
upon the poverty of the altar. Four lights were burning 
before the Virgin of the Dove, but this tribute seemed 
niggardly to her. 

She opened her purse to give a duro to an employee. 
Could he not bring more tapers? The man scratched his 
head. Tapers? Tapers? He did not believe he could 
find any among the chattels belonging to the plaza. But 
he suddenly recalled to mind the sisters of a matador 
who brought candles whenever he fought bulls. Maybe 
they were not all gone, and there might be a few in some 


[ 367 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


corner of the chapel. After a long search he found them. 
There were no candlesticks, but the employee, a man of 
resources, brought a couple of empty bottles, and stick- 
ing the candles into their necks, he lit them and placed 
them near the other lights. 

Carmen had knelt and the two men took advantage of 
her immobility to rush to the plaza, eager to witness the 
first events of the corrida. 

The woman remained lost in contemplation of the 
crude image reddened by the lights. She was not familiar 
with this Virgin, but she must be sweet and kind like the 
one in Seville to whom she had so often made supplica- 
tion. Moreover, she was the Virgin of the bull-fighters, 
she heard their last prayers when danger near at hand 
gave sincere piety to those rough men. On that floor 
her husband had knelt many times. And this thought 
was enough to cause her to feel attracted to the image 
and to contemplate her with religious trust, as if she had 
known her since childhood. 

Her lips moved, repeating the supplications with au- 
tomatic haste, but her thoughts fled away from prayer, 
as if drawn by the noises of the multitude that reached 
her. 

Ah! that intermittent volcano-like bellowing, that roar ~ 
of distant waves, broken from time to time by pauses 
of tragic silence! Carmen imagined herself witnessing 
the invisible bull-fight. She divined by the variations 
in the sounds from the plaza the progress of the tragedy 
that was taking place within the ring. Sometimes there 
was an explosion of angry shouts with accompaniment 
of hisses; again thousands and thousands of voices ut- 
tered unintelligible words. Suddenly rose a shriek of 


[ 368 ] 





THE ATONEMENT OF BLOOD 


terror, prolonged, shrill, that seemed to rise to heaven; 
a fearful and halting exclamation that brought to mind 
thousands of heads in a row, blanched by emotion, fol- 
lowing the swift race of a bull in pursuit of a man — 
until it was suddenly broken by a shout, re-establishing 
‘calm, The danger had passed. 

There were long intervals of silence; a silence ab- 
solute; the silence of the void, in which the buzzing of 
the flies hovering around the horses was magnified, as 
though the immense amphitheatre were deserted, as 
though the fourteen thousand persons seated on its sur- 
rounding seats had become motionless and breathless, 
and Carmen were the only living being that existed 
within its heart. 

Suddenly this silence was animated by a loud and in- 
describable shock as though every brick in the plaza 
were loosened from its place and all were dashing 
against one another. It was the prolonged applause that 
made the ring tremble. In the nearby courtyard sounded 
blows. of the rod on the hide of the wretched horses, 
blasphemy, clatter of hoofs, and voices. “ Whose turn?” 
New lancers were called into the plaza. 

To these noises others nearer were added. Footsteps 
* sounded in the adjoining rooms, doors opened suddenly, 
voices and labored breathing of several men were heard, 
as if they walked burdened by great weight. 

“It is nothing —a bruise. Thou’rt not bleeding. Be- 
fore the corrida is over thou”lt be lancing again.” 

A hoarse voice, weakened by pain, groaned between 
gasps with an accent that reminded Carmen of home: 

“ Virgin of Solitude! I must have broken something. 
Look well, doctor. Alas, my children!” 


[ 369 | 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Carmen shuddered with horror. She raised her eyes 
that had wandered in fear to the Virgin. Her nose 
seemed drawn out by her emotion to a sharp point be- 
tween sunken and pallid cheeks. She felt sick; she 
feared that she would fall to the floor in a faint from ter- 
ror. She tried to pray again, to isolate herself in prayer; 
to not hear the noises from without, transmitted through 
the walls with a tone of despair. But in spite of her 
a dismal sound reached her ear of sponges being wet in 
water and voices of men who must be doctors and nurses 
stimulating the picador, who complained with the energy 
of a mountaineer, at the same time striving to hide the 
pain of his broken bones through manly pride. 
“Virgin of Solitude! My children! What will the 
poor babes have to eat if their father cannot use the 
lance?” 
Carmen arose. Ah, she could bear no more! She 
would fall fainting if she remained in that gloomy place 
trembling at the echoes of pain. She thought she felt 
in her own bones the same torture that caused that un- 
known man to groan. 
She went out into the courtyard. Blood on all sides; 
blood on the floor and around some casks where water 
mingled with the red fluid. 
_ The picadores were retiring from the ring. The sign for 

the display of the banderillas had been given, and the rid- 
ers came out on their bleeding horses. They dismounted, 
talking with animation of the incidents of the bull-fight. 
Carmen saw Potaje let his vigorous person down off his 
horse hurling a string of curses at the mono sabio who 
stupidly assisted him in his descent. He seemed be- 
numbed by his hidden iron greaves and from the pain 


[ 370 ] 





THE ATONEMENT OF BLOOD 


of several violent falls. He raised one hand to his back 
to ease himself with painful stretches, but he smiled, 
showing his yellow horse-like teeth. 

“Have ye seen how well Juan does to-day?” tie said 
to those who surrounded him. “To-day he surely is all 
right.” 

Seeing a solitary woman in the courtyard, and recog- 
nizing her, he showed no surprise. 

“You here, Sefia’ Carmen? How good!” 

He spoke tranquilly, as if he, in the stupor which wine 
and his own bestiality kept him, could not be surprised 
by anything in the world. 

“Have you seen Juan?” he continued. “He laid 
down on the ground before the bull, under his very nose. 
Nobody else can do what that fellow does. Peep in and 
see him, for he is very fine to-day.” 

Some one called him from the door of the infirmary. 
His companion, the picador, wanted to speak to him be- 
fore being taken to the hospital. 

“ Adio’, Sefia’ Carmen. I must see what that poor 
fellow wants. A fall with a fracture, they say. He 
won’t use the lance again this whole season.” 

Carmen took refuge under the arcades and closed her 
eyes to the repugnant spectacle in the courtyard, yet at 
the same time fascinated by the sickening sight of the - 
blood. 

The monos sabios led in the wounded horses by the bridle 
reins. A stable boy, seeing them, began to bestir him- 
self, in a fever of activity. 
“Courage, brave boys!” he shouted, addressing the 
youths with the horses. “Firm! Firm there!” 

A stable-boy carefully approached a horse that was 


[ 372 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


struggling in pain, took off his saddle, fastened leather 
straps around his legs, binding the four extremities, and 
threw the animal to the ground. 

“There, there! Firm! Firm with him!” the one in 
charge of the horses continued shouting, without ceasing 
his activity. 

Another held the reins of the fallen animal and pressed 
his poor head against the ground by placing his foot on 
it. The nose contracted with distortions of pain, the 
long yellow teeth gritted with a chill of martyrdom, his 
stifled whinnies lost in the dust from the pressure of the 
foot. The gory hands of the others worked to return 
the flaccid entrails to the open cavity of the abdomen or 
stuffed it with handfuls of tow while still others, with a 
skill acquired by practice, sewed up the hide. 

When the horse was “fixed” with barbaric prompt- 
ness, they threw a bucket of water over his head, loosed 
his feet from the straps and gave him several blows with 
a rod to make him stand up. Some, after walking barely 
two steps, fell flat, shedding a stream of blood from the 
wound stitched with pack-thread. It was instantaneous 
death. Others were kept alive by some marvellous re- 
source of animal vigor, and the lackeys, after this “ fix- 
ing,” took them to the “varnishing,” inundating their 
feet and bellies with strong ablutions from casks of wa- 
ter. The white or chestnut color of the animals became 
glossy and the hair dripped a rose-colored liquid, a mix- 
ture of water and blood. The horses were patched up as 
if they were old shoes; their waning strength was ex- 
ploited to the last breath, prolonging their agony and 
death. The important thing was to keep these animals 
on their feet a few minutes longer, until the picadores 


[ 372 ] 





THE ATONEMENT OF BLOOD 


could get into the plaza again; the bull would take charge 
of finishing the work. 

Carmen wished to go. Virgin of Hope! What was 
she doing there? She did not know the order the 
matadores were to follow in their work. Maybe that last 
trumpet-blast signalled the moment in which her hus- 
band would stand before the wild beast. And she there, 
a few steps from him, and not seeing him! She wished 
to escape, to free herself from this torment. 

Moreover, the blood that ran through the courtyard, 
and the torment of those poor beasts, caused her the 
greatest anguish. Her womanly delicacy rebelled against 
these tortures, while she held her handkerchief to her 
nostrils to stifle the slaughter-house odors. 

She had never been to a bull-fight. A great part of her 
existence had been spent hearing conversation about 
bulls, but in the tales of these sports she saw only the 
external, what all the world saw, the events in the ring, 
in the light of the sun, with glitter of silks and embroid- 
eries and the ostentatious spectacle, without realizing 
the odious preparations that took place in the mystery 
of the wings. And they lived off this “sport,” with its 
repugnant martyrdom of guiltless animals; and their for- 
tune had been made at the cost of such spectacles! 

A loud applause broke out within the ring. Orders 
were issued in the courtyard with imperious voice. The 
first bull had just died. The barricade at the end of the 
passage that communicated with the ring was opened 
and the noises of the multitude and the echoes of the 
music were borne in with more intensity. 

The mules were in the plaza; one team to collect the 
dead horses, another to drag out the bull’s carcass. 


[ 373 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Carmen saw her brother-in-law coming along the ar- 
cades. He was still tremulous with enthusiasm over 
what he had seen. 

*« Juan — colossal! This afternoon as he never was be- 
fore! Fear not. Why, that boy eats the bulls up alive!” 

Then he glanced at her uneasily, fearful that she would 
make him lose so interesting an afternoon. What did 
she decide? Did she think she had the courage to peep 
into the plaza? 

“Take me away!” she said with an agonized accent. 
“Get me out of here quickly. I am sick. Leave me in 
the first church we can find.” 

The leather-worker made a wry face. By the life of 
Roger — ! Leave such a magnificent bull-fght! And as 
they walked toward the door he was calculating where 
he could abandon Carmen so as to immediately return 
to the plaza. 


When the second bull came in, Gallardo, still leaning 
against the barrier, was receiving felicitations from his 
admirers. What courage that boy had—“‘when he 
wished.” The whole plaza had applauded the first bull, 
forgetting their anger at the former corridas. When a 
picador fell and lay senseless from the terrible shock, Gal- 
lardo had rushed up with his cape, drawing the wild beast 
into the centre of the ring. He made some bold verénicas 
that at last held the bull motionless and exhausted, after 
turning from the lure of the red rag. The bull-fighter, 
taking advantage of the animal’s stupefaction, stood erect 
within a few steps of his muzzle, thrusting his body for- 
ward as if in challenge. He felt the heart-throbbing, that 
happy precursor of his great daring. He must conquer 


[ 374] 





THE ATONEMENT OF BLOOD 


the public with a dash of audacity, and he knelt before 
the horns with a certain precaution, ready to arise at the 
slightest sign of charging. 

The bull stood quiet. Gallardo reached out a hand un- 
til he touched the drivelling muzzle and the animal made 
no movement whatever. Then he dared something that 
held the public in palpitating silence. Slowly he laid 
himself down on the sand, with the cape between his 
arms serving as a pillow, and thus he remained some 
seconds lying beneath the nose of the bull who sniffed 
him with a kind of fear, as if he suspected danger in this 
body that audaciously placed itself beneath his horns. 

When the bull, recovering his aggressive fierceness, 
lowered his horns, the bull-fighter rolled toward his feet, 
in this way putting himself out of his reach, and the an- 
imal passed over him, vainly seeking in his ferocious 
blindness the bulk that attacked him. 

Gallardo rose brushing off the dust, and the public, 
which adored feats of daring, applauded him with the 
old-time enthusiasm. It hailed not alone his audacity, 
it applauded itself, admiring its own majesty, guessing 
that the bull-fighter’s daring was to reconcile himself 
with it, to regain its affection. Gallardo came to the 
corrida disposed to the most daring deeds to reconquer 
applause. 

“ He is careless,” they said on the tiers of seats, “ often 
he is slack; but he has bull-fighter pride and he is going 
to redeem his name.” 

But the enthusiasm of the public, their gay excitement 
over Gallardo’s achievement, and the true sword-thrust 
with which the other matador had killed the first bull, 
turned to ill-humor and protest as they saw the second 


[375 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


in the ring. He was enormous and of beautiful build, 
but he ran through the centre of the arena looking with 
surprise at the noisy multitude on the bleachers, fright- 
ened at the voices and hisses that were meant to excite 
him, fleeing from his own shadow, as if he divined all 
kinds of intrigue. The peones ran, waving the cape at 
him. He charged at the red rag, following it some in- 
stants, but suddenly he gave a snort of surprise and, 
turning his hind quarters, fled in the opposite direction 
with violent springs. His eagerness for flight infuriated 
the public. 

“That’s no bull—it’s a monkey.” 

The swordsmen’s capes finally managed to attract it 
toward the barrier, where the picadores waited motion- 
less on their mounts, with lance under arm. He ap- 
proached a rider with lowered head and with fierce 
snorts as if to charge. But before the iron could be 
lodged in his neck, he gave a spring and ran, passing 
through the capes the peones waved at him. In his flight 
he met another lancer and repeated the springing, the 
snorting and the flight. Then he met the third horse- 
man, who, thrusting forward his lance, speared him in 
the neck, by this punishment only augmenting his fear 
and his speed. 

The public had risen to its feet en masse, gesticulating 
and shouting. A tame bull! What an abomination! 
Every one turned toward the president roaring his 
protest. ‘‘Sefior Presidente!” That could not be 
allowed. 

A chorus of voices that repeated the same words with 
monotonous intonation began to rise from some sec- 
tions. 

“Fire! Fi-i-ire!” 


[376] 





THE ATONEMENT OF BLOOD 


The president seemed to hesitate. The bull was run- 
ning, followed by the combatants, who chased after him, 
their capes over their arms. When any of these man- 
aged to head him off, or to stop him, he smelt the cloth 
with the usual snort and ran in a different direction, 
jumping and kicking. 

The noisy protest against these flights increased. 
“Senor Presidente!”” Was his lordship deaf? Bottles, or- 
anges, and seat cushions began to fall into the ring 
around the fugitive animal. The public hated it for its 
cowardice. One bottle struck on one of the horns and 
the people applauded this true shot though not knowing 
who it was. Many of the audience leaned forward as if 
about to throw themselves into the ring to destroy the 
bad beast with their hands. What a scandal! To see 
in the plaza of Madrid oxen that were only fit for meat! 
“Fire! Fire!” 

At last the president waved a red handkerchief and a 
salvo of applause greeted this signal. 

The fire banderillas were an extraordinary sight; some- 
thing unexpected, that augmented the interest of the 
corrida. Many who had protested until they were hoarse 
felt inward satisfaction at this incident. They were go- 
ing to see the bull roasted alive, running mad with ter- 
ror at the fire-streams that would be hanging from his 
neck. 

Nacional advanced carrying, hanging from his hands, 
with the points downward, two thick banderillas' that 
seemed to be encased in black paper. He went toward 
the bull without great precaution, as if his cowardice 
merited no art whatever, and he lodged the infernal 
barbs to the accompaniment of the vengeful applause of 
the multitude. 


[377] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


There was a crackling sound as if something broke 
and two spirals of white smoke began to blaze on the 
animal’s neck. In the light of the sun the fire could not 
be seen, but the hair singed and disappeared and a 
black mark extended around the neck. The buil ran, sur- 
prised at the attack, accelerating his flight as though 
thus to free himself from torment, until suddenly deto- 
nations like gunshots began to burst on his neck, the 
burning embers of paper flying around his eyes. The 
animal sprang aloft, filled with terror, his four feet 
in the air at once, vainly twisting his horned head to pull 
out with his mouth those demons clutched upon his neck. 
The people laughed and applauded, thinking his springs 
and contortions funny. It seemed as if, with his strong 
heavy body, he were executing a trained animal’s dance. 

_“ How they sting him,” they exclaimed, with ferocious 
laughter. 

The banderillas ceased crackling and bursting. His car- 
bonized neck was covered with blisters of fat. The bull, 
no longer feeling the burning of the fire, stood motion- 
less, breathing hard, his head lowered, thrusting out his 
dry dark-red tongue. 

Another banderillero approached him and put in a sec- 
ond pair. The smoke spirals rose again above the 
charred flesh, the shots resounded and the bull ran madly, 
trying to reach his neck with his mouth by twisting his 
massive body; but now his movements were less violent, 
as though the vigorous animal began to habituate it- 
self to martyrdom. | 

Still a third pair was lodged, and his neck became car- 
bonized, shedding through the ring a nauseating odor of 
melted grease, burnt hide, and hair consumed by fire. 


[ 378 | 





THE ATONEMENT OF BLOOD 


The public continued applauding with vengeful frenzy, 
as though the gentle animal were an adversary of their 
beliefs and they did a pious deed in burning him. They 
laughed when they saw him tremulous on his legs, mov- 
ing his flanks like the sides of a bellows, lowing with a 
shrieking howl of pain, his eyes reddened, and dragging 
his tongue over the sand, greedy for a sensation of 
coolness. 

Gallardo, leaning against the barrier, near the pres- 
ident’s box, awaited the sign to kill. Garabato had the 
sword and muleta ready on the edge of the wall. 

“ Curse it!” The bull-fight had begun so well, and for 
bad luck to reserve this bull for him, the one he himself 
had chosen on account of its fine appearance, but which 
now that it trod the arena turned out to be tame! 

He excused himself in advance for defective work, 
talking with the “intelligent” who occupied seats near 
the barrier. =: 

“What can be done will be done—and no more,” 
he said, shrugging his shoulders 

Then he turned toward the boxes, gazing at Dofia Sol’s. 
She had applauded him before, when he achieved his stu- 
pendous feat of lying down before the bull. Her gloved 
hands clapped with enthusiasm when he turned toward 
the barrier, bowing to the public. When Dofia Sol saw 
that the bull-fighter was looking at her, she bowed to 
him with an affectionate manner, and even her compan- 
ion, despicable fool! had joined this salutation with a 
stiff inclination of the body as if he were going to break 
off at the waist. Afterward he had several times sur- 
prised her glasses directed persistently at him, seeking 
him out in his retirement between barriers. That gachi! 


[ 379 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Perhaps she felt re-attracted to him. Gallardo de- 
cided to call on her next day, to see if the wind had 
changed. 

The signal to kill was given and the swordsman, after 
a short speech, strode up to the animal. 

His admirers shouted advice. 

“Despatch him quick! He is an ox that deserves 
nothing.” 

The bull-fighter held his muleta before the animal, which 
charged, but with a slow step made cautious by torture, 
with a manifest intention of crushing, of wounding, as 
if martyrdom had awakened all his ferocity. That man 
was the first object which had placed itself before his © 
horns since the torture. 

The multitude felt its vengeful animosity against the 
bull vanish. He did not recover himself badly; he 
charged. Olé! And all hailed the pases de muleta with en-. 
thusiasm, including combatant and wild beast in com- 
mon approbation. 

The bull stood motionless, lowering his head, with his 
tongue protruding. Silence, the forerunner of the mor- 
tal thrust, fell; a silence greater than that of absolute 
solitude, product of many thousands of bated breaths; 
silence so intense that the faintest sound in the ring car- 
ried to the most distant seats. All heard a slight clash- 
ing of sticks striking against each other. It was the 
sound made when Gallardo with the point of his sword 
laid back over the bull’s neck the charred shafts of the 
banderillas that rested between the horns. After this ar- 
rangement to facilitate the blow, the multitude thrust 
their heads still farther forward, responsive to the mys- 
terious correspondence that had just been established 


[ 380 ] 





THE ATONEMENT OF BLOOD 


between its will and that of the matador. “Now!” He 
was going to fell the bull with a masterful stroke. All 
divined the swordsman’s resolution. 

Gallardo threw himself upon the bull and the whole 
audience breathed hard in unison after the nerve-straining 
pause. The animal drew away from the encounter, run- 
ning, bellowing with fury, while the rows of seats burst 
out into hisses and protests. As usual! Gallardo had 
turned away his face and bent his arm at the moment of 
killing. The animal bore in his neck the loose and wav- 
ering sword, and after taking a few steps the steel blade 
sprang out of the flesh and rolled on the sand. 

Part of the public rebuked Gallardo. The charm that 
had united the swordsman to the multitude at the be- 
ginning of the feast was broken. Lack of confidence re- 
appeared; criticism of the bull-fighter spread. All 
seemed to have forgotten the enthusiasm of a short time 
before. ; 

Gallardo recovered his sword and with bowed head, 
lacking spirit to protest at the ingratitude of a multitude 
tolerant to others, inflexible with him, strode up to the 
bull again. 

In his confusion he thought he saw a bull-fighter place 
himself at his side. It must be Nacional. 

“Be calm, Juan! Don’t get rattled.” 

“Damn it!” Must the same thing always happen to 
him? Could he no longer thrust his arm between the 
horns, as in other times, burying the sword to the hilt? 
Was he to spend the rest of his life making audiences 
laugh? An ox which they had had to set on fire! 

He placed himself before the animal, which seemed to 
await him, his legs motionless as if he wished to put an 


[ 38: ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


end immediately to his long torture. He would not make 
more passes with the muleta. He squared himself, the red 
rag held near the ground, the sword horizontal at the 
height of his eyes. Now for the stroke! 

The audience rose to its feet with a sudden impulse. 
For some seconds man and beast formed but a single 
mass and thus moved a few steps. The most intelligent 
raised their hands ready to applaud. He had thrown 
himself to kill as in his better days. A master stroke! 

But suddenly the man emerged from between the 
horns hurled like a projectile by a powerful toss of the 
bull’s head, and rolled along the sand. The bull lowered 
his head and his horns hooked up the body, raising it 
from the ground an instant and letting it fail, to con- 
tinue on his race, bearing in his neck the blade of the 
sword, embedded to the cross! 

Gallardo slowly raised himself and the plaza burst 
forth into a deafening applause, eager to repair its in- 
justice. Hurrah! Good for the bull-fighter of Seville! 
He had done well! 

But the bull-fighter did not. respond to these exclama- 
tions of enthusiasm. He put his hands on his abdomen, 
bent over in an attitude of pain, and took a few hesitating 
steps with lowered head. Twice he raised it and looked 
toward the door of exit—as if he feared he could not 
find it, staggering blindly as though intoxicated. 

Suddenly he fell upon the sand— contracted like an 
enormous worm of silk and gold. Four mozos of the 
plaza slowly lifted him up until they raised him on their 
shoulders. Nacional joined the group holding the 
swordsman’s ghastly head with its glassy eyes showing 
through their half-closed lashes. 


[ 382 ] 





THE ATONEMENT OF BLOOD 


The public made a movement of surprise, ceasing their 
applause. Every one gazed about, undecided as to the 
gravity of the event. But suddenly optimistic news cir- 
culated, coming from no one knew where; that anon- 
ymous opinion, which all heed and which at certain 
moments fires a multitude or causes it to remain motion- 
less. It was nothing. A wound in the abdomen that 
deprived him of his senses. No one had seen blood. 

The crowd, suddenly tranquillized, began to be seated 
again, turning its attention from the wounded bull- 
fighter to the wild beast, which was still on its feet, re- 
sisting the agonies of death. 

Nacional helped to place his maestro on a bed in the in- 
firmary. He fell on it like a sack, inanimate, his arms 
hanging outside the couch. 

Sebastian, though he had often seen his maestro wounded 
and bleeding, and had kept his serenity in spite of it, 
now felt an agony of fear, seeing him inert and of a 
greenish white color, as if he were dead. 

“By the life of the blue dove!” he moaned. “Are 
there no doctors? Is there nobody here?” 

The man in charge of the hospital, after sending away 
the mangled picador, had rushed back to his box in the 
plaza. 

The banderillero was in despair; the seconds seemed 
hours; he screamed to Garabato and to Potaje who had 
followed after him, not sure what he was trying to tell 
them. 

Two doctors came and after closing the door so that 
no one could disturb them, they stood undecided before 
the swordsman’s inanimate body. He must be undressed. 
Garabato began to unbutton, rip, and tear the bull-fight- 


[ 383 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


er’s clothing, by the light that entered through a window 
in the ceiling. 

-Nacional could hardly see the body. The doctors stood 
around the wounded man, consulting each other with 
significant glances. It must be a collapse that had ap- 
parently deprived him of life. No blood was seen. The 
rents in his clothing were the effect, no doubt, of the 
tumbling the bull had given him. 

Doctor Ruiz entered hastily and his colleagues made 
way for him, respecting his skill. He swore in his nerv- 
ous precipitation while he began to assist Garabato to 
open the bull-fighter’s clothing. 

There was a movement of astonishment, of painful 
surprise, around the bed. The banderillero dared not in- 
quire. He looked between the heads of the doctors and 
saw Gallardo’s body with the shirt raised above his 
breast. The naked abdomen was gashed by a tortuous 
aperture like bleeding lips, through which appeared 
patches of bright blue. 

Doctor Ruiz sadly shook his head. Besides the atro- 
cious and incurable wound, the bull-fighter had received 
a tremendous shock from the bull’s tossing. He did not 
breathe. 

“ Doctor — doctor!” cried the banderillero, begging to 
know the truth. 

Doctor Ruiz, after a long silence, shook his head again. 

“Tt is all over, Sebastian. Thou must seek another 
matador.” 

Nacional raised his eyes aloft. Thus to end a man 
like that, unable to press the hand of his friends, with- 
out a word, suddenly, like a miserable rabbit struck in 
the neck! 


[ 384 ] 





THE ATONEMENT OF BLOOD 


In despair he left the infirmary. Ah, he could not see 
that! He was not like Potaje who stood quiet and 
frowning at the foot of the bed, contemplating the body 
as though he did not see it, while he twirled his beaver 
hat in his fingers. 

He was about to cry like a child. His breast heaved 
with anguish, and his eyes filled with tears. 

He had to make way through the courtyard to give 
passage to the picadores who were entering the ring again. 

The terrible news began to circulate through the plaza. 
Gallardo was dead! Some doubted the truth of the in- 
formation; others accepted it; still no one moved from 
his seat. The third bull was soon to come in. The cor- 
rida had not yet reached its first half, and there was no 
reason for abandoning it. 

Through the door of the ring came the murmur of 
the multitude and the sound of music. 

The banderillero felt a fierce hatred born within him for 
all that surrounded him; an aversion to his profession 
and to the public that supported it. In his memory 
danced the sonorous words with which he had made the 
people laugh, finding in them now a new expression of 
justice. 

He thought of the bull which was at that moment being 
dragged out of the arena, its neck burned and blood- 
stained, its legs rigid, and its glassy eyes staring at blue 
space as do those of the dead. 

Then in imagination he saw the friend who lay but 
a few steps away from him on the other side of a brick 
wall, also motionless and stiff, his breast bare, his abdo- 
men torn open, a glazed and mysterious brilliancy be- 
tween his half-closed lashes. 


[ 385 ] 


THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA 


Poor bull! Poor matador! 

Suddenly the murmuring amphitheatre burst forth in- 
to a bellowing, hailing the continuation of the specta- 
cle. Nacional closed his eyes and clenched his fists. 

It was the bellowing of the wild beast, the real and 
only one! 


THE END 


~~ 


PN 




















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